Despite government measures to curb speculation in the pre-sold and newly constructed home markets, transactions of residential and commercial property in Taiwan’s six largest cities still moved higher last month, with analysts saying buyers rushed to pick up existing homes.
Statistics released by the six special municipalities on Friday found that transactions of homes, offices and shops in Taipei, New Taipei City, and Taoyuan in the north, Taichung in central Taiwan, and Tainan and Kaohsiung in the south totaled 20,202 units, up 1.6 percent from a month earlier and also up 5.5 percent from a year earlier.
It was the first time housing transactions have moved higher on both a month-on-month and year-on-year basis in six months, while last month was also the second consecutive month to record a month-on-month increase.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Taiwan Realty Enterprise Group (台灣房屋集團) section chief Charlene Chang (張旭嵐) said the higher housing sales showed many home buyers went to the second-hand home market in a bid to skirt the latest government measures targeting the pre-sold home market in particular.
Chang added that Taichung and Tainan saw a spike of home deliveries to buyers from property developers last month, which further boosted the transactions in the six cities as a whole.
Housing transactions in Tainan soared 36.9 percent from a month earlier to 2,510 units and the figure rose sharply by 24.4 percent from a year earlier, helping the city enjoy the highest sales growth among the six municipalities.
In Taichung, housing transactions stood at 4,095 units, up 5.5 percent from a month earlier and also up 1.7 percent from a year earlier.
Housing sales in Taipei bucked the upturn, falling 5.9 percent from a month earlier and dropping 4.5 percent from a year earlier to 2,135 units, while transactions in New Taipei City stood at 4,774 units, down 2.4 percent from a month earlier but up 6.8 percent from a year earlier.
Transactions in Taoyuan hit 3,632 units, down 5.8 percent from a month earlier but up 4.3 percent from a year earlier, while Kaohsiung recorded housing transactions of 3,056 units, down 2.9 percent from a month earlier but up 4.5 percent from a year earlier.
In the first eight months of this year, Taiwan’s housing sales hit 147,082 units, down about 13 percent from last year.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said judging from recent transaction data, the local home market shows signs of bottoming out as buyers for self-dwelling purposes jump into the market.
Housing transactions around Taiwan are expected to top 285,000 units this year, compared with 318,101 units recorded in the previous year, Tseng said.
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