The real estate market next year is expected to be stagnant, due to an uncertain outlook caused by fears of a potential bird flu outbreak and further hikes in fuel and commodity prices, a report said yesterday.
"Though the national economy is expected to improve, there will be an imbalance of supply and demand in the property market. We expect small fluctuations to occur," said Chang Chin-oh (
He was speaking at a press conference yesterday upon the release of the latest housing report he co-authored with the Architecture and Building Research Institute under the Ministry of the Interior.
According to Chang, since the property market has picked up in the two years since the SARS outbreak, more potential buyers will adopt a "wait-and-see" attitude on their purchases next year, resulting in flat housing prices.
Meanwhile, fully 53.64 percent of the developers, property agents and banking institutions polled in the survey expressed pessimism for the first quarter of next year, while only 17.27 percent said the market will improve.
"Housing builders should control the quality of their projects next year to attract buyers. They may have a hard time selling large-size projects and be forced to slash prices," Chang said.
In view of this, potential property buyers are advised to focus on their practical living needs rather than purchasing real estate for investment, he said.
The housing report also showed that the total score of various indicators used to gauge the real-estate sector declined one point to 11 points in the third quarter this year.
This translates into a slowdown in the property market after mild growth for the previous eight consecutive quarters, Chang added.
For all of this year, the real-estate sector showed marginal growth with stable supply and demand, the report said.
This was attributed to several factors including lower interest rates, downward revisions of economic growth and decreased subsidies for housing loans, Chang said.
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