An auction of luxury apartments in Mucha did not do as well as organizers had hoped yesterday, with only four out of 13 Taipei Garden Town Housing units sold for a total of NT$68.8 million.
If all 13 units had been sold the auction would have raised at least NT$251.5 million, based on the units' minimum bids.
"We had a closing rate of 30.8 percent, which was lower than our expectations of a rate of over 50 percent," said Allen Hsu (
Advisor, the auction's organizer.
All four deals, however, closed at their asking prices of NT$15.3 million, NT$15.3 million, NT$18.7 million and NT$19.5 million.
"The remaining [18] participating bidders failed to put down any bids, appearing to adopt a wait-and-see approach," Hsu said at a press conference yesterday.
The disappointing outcome of yesterday's auction can be blamed on the public's unfamiliarity with the idea of auctioning off newly built luxury homes, he said.
According to Hsu, over 450 people visited the site in the past month as part of the auction preview. Only 22 people actually put down the NT$600,000 deposit required to take part in the auction.
"We were a little disappointed with the poor participation," Hsu said.
He said that the company hasn't yet decided what to do with nine unsold units, pending further discussions with the property's owner.
"But there won't be price cuts since that would be unfair to the bid winners," Hsu said.
He said his company may hold more auctions to sell off the remaining properties.
Chen Yun-ru (陳韻如), a manager at the Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), said she wasn't surprised with the poor outcome.
"The higher the asking price at such a luxury-housing auction, the lower the closing rate will be since the public is used to buying low-priced houses at auctions," she said.
Chen said that the asking prices were pretty reasonable, but many people are used to bargaining and may wish to make a private deal with the owner later.
She said DTZ now faces a pricing dilemma, since future price cuts would taint yesterday's auction, but standing firm on the minimum bids might not attract other buyers.
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