Commercial property deals closed last year grew 6 percent annually to total NT$100.26 billion (US$3.15 billion) — the second-highest in the past five years after 2007’s NT$119.3 billion — real-estate adviser DTZ (戴德梁行) said yesterday.
Local life insurers were the biggest buyers, injecting a total capital of NT$65.6 billion in the acquisition of commercial properties, or 65 percent of the market size last year, the realtor said.
The Shin Kong Mitsukoshi A11 department store building topped all other transactions last year, closed at NT$11.6 billion by the life insurer of Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), followed by Asia Plaza’s (亞太經貿廣場) three office complexes at NT$11.5 billion, closed by Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽).
“Commercial property and luxury residential markets in great locations will continue their upward momentum this year after Chinese investors are allowed in,” the realtor’s general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) told a media briefing yesterday.
Without elaborating, Yen said that individual Chinese investors have been shopping for local properties.
“Money has been lining up to acquire properties at great locations,” he said.
Properties in Taipei County will also benefit from closer ties with China, he said.
In the office rental market, the vacancy rate of grade-A offices in Taipei slightly declined to 11.6 percent last quarter while rentals averaged NT$2,310 per ping (3.2m²), the realtor’s survey showed.
The rental of grade-A offices in upscale Xinyi District (信義) slightly climbed to average at NT$2,780 per ping last quarter while that in four other business districts in Taipei remained flat, it said.
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