Property transactions last month totaled 20,678 units in the nation’s six special municipalities, shrinking 3 percent from a month and a year earlier, as the market continued to digest unfavorable policy measures at a moderate pace, analysts said yesterday.
Property deals retreated 24 percent annually in the first quarter, narrowing to 13 percent year-on-year last quarter, Taiwan’s sole listed broker Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said, citing data from the civic bureaus of Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
The data could suggest there are signs of stabilization, although the market might need more time to acclimatize to the central bank’s new lending restrictions on second-home mortgages introduced on June 15 and the implementation this month of the bans on transfers of pre-sale house purchase agreements, Sinyi research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said.
Photo: CNA
There is a fair chance that trading volume would hold steady this month compared with a year earlier, after logging a 3 percent decline last month, indicating that the worst is over and potential buyers have started to regain confidence, Tseng said.
Taipei and Taichung fared better than other areas with a year-on-year increase of 14 percent and 7 percent respectively due to new housing delivery, Sinyi said.
Tainan and Kaohsiung underperformed with a year-on-year slump of 26 percent and 8 percent respectively, as the property fever that had been sparked by the capacity expansion plans of major local tech firms subsided, it said.
The mixed results showed that people on average remain cautious and the market would consolidate in the near future, Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) said.
Summer could be the low season for property transactions, as many people are expected to go on vacation abroad after three years of COVID-19 restrictions, it said, adding that Ghost Month would also be unfavorable.
Taiwanese avoid business transactions during Ghost Month, which is from Aug. 16 to Sept. 14 this year.
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
NOT TO WORRY: Some people are concerned funds might continue moving out of the country, but the central bank said financial account outflows are not unusual in Taiwan Taiwan’s outbound investments hit a new high last year due to investments made by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other major manufacturers to boost global expansion, the central bank said on Thursday. The net increase in outbound investments last year reached a record US$21.05 billion, while the net increase in outbound investments by Taiwanese residents reached a record US$31.98 billion, central bank data showed. Chen Fei-wen (陳斐紋), deputy director of the central bank’s Department of Economic Research, said the increase was largely due to TSMC’s efforts to expand production in the US and Japan. Investments by Vanguard International
WARNING SHOT: The US president has threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on all imported vehicles, and similar or higher duties on pharmaceuticals and semiconductors US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that a trade deal with China was “possible” — a key target in the US leader’s tariffs policy. The US in 2020 had already agreed to “a great trade deal with China” and a new deal was “possible,” Trump said. Trump said he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to visit the US, without giving a timeline for his trip. Trump also said that he was talking to China about TikTok, as the US seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese firm ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動). Trump last week said that he had
RSS