Housing transactions in the six special municipalities last month totaled 23,801 units, representing a 16.9 percent increase from a year earlier, as favorable lending terms and stock market rallies bolstered buying interest, data released by separate local administrations showed on Monday.
Real demand for first homes continued to facilitate transactions after the government in August last year introduced an interest rate subsidy to help people buy their own home, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said in a note.
Buying interest remained strong even though the central bank last month tightened the loan-to-value limit from 70 percent to 60 percent for second-home purchases in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Hsinchu city and county, Tseng said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The measure, which reflected the central bank’s concern over the increases in housing loans and prices, does not affect first-home purchases, which still qualify for low interest rates of 1.775 percent, a five-year grace period and mortgages of up to 40 years until the stimulus program expires in 2026, Tseng said.
That helped explain why the market remained stable last month, while the number of homes available for sale declined, he said, expecting the uptrend to continue into the second half as long as the local bourse remained strong.
The stock market rallies inflate wealth for investors and expedite home purchase decisions, Tseng added.
Tainan reported the biggest increase of 44 percent in transactions from a year earlier to 2,399 units, followed by a 37.8 percent advance in Taoyuan to 4,641 units, and Kaohsiung’s 30.5 percent rise to 4,048 units, the data showed.
Taichung posted a 5.5 percent pickup to 2,619 units, while Taipei and New Taipei City posted moderate increases of 5.4 percent and 1.9 percent to 2,619 units and 5,369 units respectively.
Last month’s total transactions represented an 11.5 percent decrease when compared with one month earlier, due mainly to a lack of new home deliveries, rather than a turnaround in sentiment, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research head Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said.
Taiwan’s robust economic data helped underpin the TAIEX rallies and housing transactions, Chen said, adding that the uptrend is expected to continue.
However, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) expressed doubt that the momentum could be sustained, as the government has moved to tighten reviews of first-home loan applications to root out dummy buyers and loan abuses.
Property investors use the favorable lending terms to buy houses through dummy accounts to generate rent income, in violation of the self-occupancy requirement.
The government might adopt more restrictions if the property fever grows unchecked, Great Home said.
Overall, housing deals in the six special municipalities totaled 136,499 units in the first half of this year, up 27.6 percent from the a year earlier, the data showed.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Local companies believe that nearly a third of all job opportunities will vanish in 10 years due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey released by online job bank yes123 on Tuesday. In the survey of 1,016 companies on the labor market’s third quarter outlook, the job bank focused in part on AI’s impact on workers and asked companies what percentage of jobs they felt would be lost to AI’s round-the-clock productivity and high-speed computing prowess. Respondents felt on average that 29.2 percent of job opportunities would be lost to AI over the next 10 years, but there
Taiwanese workers earned an average of NT$47,000 per month this year, but 40 percent are struggling financially and 18 percent plan to switch jobs within 12 months, two separate surveys showed yesterday. The amount equals a 5.4 percent increase from a year earlier to a decade high, 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said. The government is due to review the nation’s minimum wages. Employees at computer and consumer electronics manufacturers reported the highest average monthly wage of NT$60,000 a month, followed by semiconductor firms at NT$59,000, and vendors of shoe and textile products, along with software and Internet businesses at NT$55,000, 104 Job