Residential real-estate transactions picked up modestly last month from a month earlier as recovering consumer confidence outweighed concern over credit control, major real estate agencies said.
Sinyi Realty Co (信義房屋) reported an 8 percent increase in the number of housing units traded last month from a month earlier, driven by private buyers as investors remained cautious after the central bank tightened credit for second-home loans in June.
“The latest transaction data affirmed our belief that prospective buyers assigned more importance to housing prices and locations than the mayoral elections at the end of November,” Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), a senior researcher at Sinyi, said by telephone.
Housing prices in Taipei City were almost unchanged at NT$500,000 (US$16,240) per ping (3.3m2) last month, NT$250,000 in Sinbei City and NT$110,000 in central and southern Taiwan, Su said.
Housing prices are likely to consolidate in the near term as the central bank may further tighten credit to prevent asset bubbles, while Chinese and foreign capital may flow to the sector amid improving cross-strait trade ties, Su said.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) saw transactions little changed in northern and central Taiwan last month, while units transferred rose 3.5 percent in southern areas, company communications manager Bright Lee (李建興) said by telephone.
Housing prices picked up 4.8 percent and 3.3 percent in Taipei City and Sinbei City respectively from a month earlier, Lee said. He attributed the trend to improving consumer confidence after the jobless rate dropped below 5 percent.
Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋), the largest brokerage in the Taoyuan and Hsinchu areas, reported that the number of home transactions increased by 2.1 percent to 10.24 percent in different parts of Taiwan, while prices were nearly flat from levels a month earlier, said Chiu Tai-hsuan, head researcher at Taiwan Realty.
Housing transactions rose 2.3 percent and 2.1 percent in Taipei City and Kaohsing City respectively, while units transferred grew 10.4 percent in Hsinchu and 9.2 percent in Taichung, Chiu said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last