After sales of two commercial buildings in Taipei last week yielded better-than-expected premiums, all eyes are now on another land auction in Taipei’s Xinyi District on April 16, which real estate consultancy firm DTZ (戴德梁行) said would likely realize a 15.6 percent premium.
“There is too much money competing for too few investment opportunities,” DTZ general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) said yesterday, adding that growth momentum for office buildings and commercial properties with fixed rental incomes in good locations remained strong.
He estimated that the 911 ping (3,012m²) plot of land — plot D3 located close to Taipei 101 — could fetch NT$2.3 million (US$68,500) per ping, higher than its floor price of NT$1.83 billion, or about NT$2 million per ping.
Although sales of large-scale commercial properties totaled only NT$9.7 billion in the first quarter of this year — much lower than the quarterly average of NT$23.7 billion last year — Yen forecast that the commercial market would grow another NT$20 billion this quarter to total NT$30 billion in the first half of the year.
Most potential buyers would be cash-affluent domestic insurance companies rather than overseas buyers, who have mostly left Taiwan, he said.
Several commercial buildings in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) may also be put up for sale, although they may not be as attractive as top-tier properties in downtown Taipei, said Charlie Yang (楊長達), director of real estate appraisal for DTZ.
Yen said that was the main reason why Neihu’s vacant properties, totaling 110,000 ping in floor space, failed to be snapped up as owners refused to lower their floor prices.
He wasn’t upbeat about the residential property market, which he said had not hit bottom.
Investors should put their money into the rallying stock market rather than into the residential property market, which is still on a downward slope, he said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure