Housing transactions in the first six months of this year soared 27 percent from a year earlier to 177,000 units, two separate surveys showed, despite steep price increases in some major urban centers.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), Taiwan’s only listed broker, yesterday said that there was an increase in transactions for new and existing houses as buyer interest spiked.
More increases are expected, Sinyi Realty said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The upbeat sentiment came even though home prices rose 4.8 to 17 percent in the six special municipalities — Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung — as well as Hsinchu city and county, Sinyi research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾進德) said.
Prices in the Hsinchu area increased the most nationwide with a 17.1 percent jump in the first half, followed by Taoyuan (15.6 percent), Taichung (14.9 percent) and Kaohsiung (13.1 percent), the company said.
Sinyi Realty linked the surge in buying interest to an economic recovery and TAIEX rallies.
Taiwan’s exports expanded more than 10 percent in the first half and would gain pace in the high sales season for technology products, Tseng said.
At the same time, local stocks have repeatedly set new highs amid a global craze for artificial intelligence applications, he said.
Sinyi Realty expects challenges to arise, as the central bank last month raised the lenders’ reserve requirement ratio by 12.5 basis points and lowered the loan-to-value limit from 70 percent to 60 percent for second-home mortgages in the six special municipalities and Hsinchu.
Furthermore, the government and state-run banks have tightened reviews for first-home loan applications to root out dummy buyers and potential landlords, the realtor said.
Interest subsidies and other favorable lending terms are intended to help people buy first homes to meet self-occupancy needs, the Ministry of Finance has said, adding it would take action against those who contravene the rules.
A separate survey last week by Cathay Real Estate Development Co (國泰建設) showed that presale and new house projects in the April-to-June quarter more than doubled to NT$557.5 billion (US$16.97 billion) from three months earlier.
Selling prices averaged NT$530,300 per ping (3.3m2) nationwide, an increase of 6.7 percent from a quarter earlier, Cathay Real Estate Development said, adding that the 30-day sales rate climbed 5.22 percentage points to 22.12 percent.
Taiwan’s rapid economic growth lent support to the upturn in the presale and new housing market by measure of project volume, sales rates and selling prices, it said.
The gauge on price concessions widened 0.31 percentage points to 6.38 percent, still within a healthy range, it said.
Cathay Real Estate Development said that it is optimistic the improvement would continue, but warned that the central bank might introduce more credit controls to rein in the market.
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