Institutional investors are gearing up to explore profit opportunities in Taiwan's large-area office buildings, industrial lands and even high-end residential properties, a leading commercial property broker said yesterday.
"They are keen on investment targets such as Grade-A office buildings, service apartments, three-star-and-up hotels with at least 100 rooms, as well as distressed assets," said Andrew Liu (
Bottomed out
Liu said the property market has not only bottomed out, but there is also room for institutional investors to benefit from the market's future upside.
Among those institutional investors, Liu said that foreign asset management companies (AMCs) have expressed interest in investing in high-end residential properties.
Foreign AMCs had previously helped to write off NT$700 billion in property-backed non-performing loans, according to government statistics.
Multinational insurance companies and private equity funds are also targeting property investments with returns of above five percent, he added.
According to Liu, CBRE itself is currently in the midst of five deals valued at NT$30 billion in the greater Taipei area.
The company hopes to close these deals before the first half of next year.
Citing confidentiality clauses signed with clients, Liu yesterday refused to identify which these five deals are, saying only that they include two office buildings for sale in Taipei and two industrial lands that will be auctioned off.
China factor
In contrast to Liu's bullish view, another senior property consultant -- who preferred not to be identified -- yesterday expressed a bearish view toward the property market.
He said that "given current cross-strait tensions, there won't be any enthusiastic institutional investors gearing up to profit from the local real-estate market."
Most multinationals and his high-end customers are making inquiries about the property markets in Shanghai and Beijing, "not Taiwan," the consultant said.
Despite these opposing views, Liu and his visiting Shanghai-based counterpart Alan Lee (
Liu said that the company's Taipei office is looking at business opportunities from China-based Taiwanese medium and large-size businesses, including eight financial service companies that may soon set up branch offices in Shanghai.
The company, therefore, has set up China desks in both its Taipei offices and its Shanghai branch to see to Taiwanese businesspeople's real-estate needs.
Lee, managing director of CBRE's Shanghai office, yesterday further challenged a market observation that Shanghai's property market bubble may burst.
"The market in Shanghai may be experiencing a slowdown, but an uptrend is still foreseeable since the central government's plan to cool down its over-heated economy has had limited impact," Lee said.
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