Home buying interest plunged 48 percent and transactions diminished 45 percent this month from their peak in June, as the central bank continued restrictive measures to ward off a housing bubble, a survey by Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) showed yesterday.
Evertrust Rehouse, Taiwan’s largest broker with 1,800 outlets nationwide, said the central bank’s latest credit control measures might weaken house transactions by 30 to 40 percent to a range of 53,000 to 62,000 units next quarter, the lowest ever during the traditional high season.
Market sentiment started to turn sour last month when the central bank disclosed that it had met with domestic banks and cooperatives for talks on their mortgage operations, Evertrust Rehouse general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The monetary policymaker last month requested that mortgage lenders impose voluntary loan control measures. To cool real-estate lending, it also cut the loan-to-value ratio by 10 percent for all home buyers except for those who qualify for the government’s preferential lending terms.
Starting last week, Taiwanese home buyers must provide down payments of 50 percent to 70 percent if they own any other real estate, even partial or fragmented ownership resulting from inheritance, according to the central bank.
Meanwhile, selling interest picked up noticeably this month and would spike in the coming months, especially for presale housing projects soon to be delivered, Yeh said, citing the company’s internal survey.
About 76,000 presale houses would be completed in the second half of this year with loan demand valued at NT$750 billion (US$23.55 billion), Yeh said based on the government’s use license applications. Another 100,000 units would be affected next year, he said.
Loan restrictions would also hit people with moving needs created by job relocations and family size changes, Yeh said.
In a related development, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), Taiwan’s only listed broker, yesterday found that the number of people considering home purchases slumped by half from 56 percent three months earlier to 26 percent this month. Sinyi attributed the steep decline to the central bank’s loan restrictions.
Some 29 percent voiced concern over insufficient funding when planning to buy a home and 16 percent expressed worry over interest rate hikes, Sinyi said, citing a quarterly survey.
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