With the government’s control measures unlikely to unwind in the near term, about 30 percent of the nation’s real-estate brokerages are likely to cease their operations in the next six months, according to a local online job bank.
In addition, another 30 percent of local real-estate brokerages may shift their focus to other business opportunities over the same period in view of the sluggish housing market, the 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行) reported earlier this month, citing the Taipei Association of Real Estate Brokers (台北市房仲公會).
To help cool the local housing market and make it more fair, the government has introduced various policies over the past year, including selective credit-tightening measures and a special sales levy of 10 to 15 percent of the transaction price on properties sold between one and two years following purchase.
Late last year, lawmakers also approved bills that require land administration agents, real-estate buyers and real-estate brokers to register the value of property transactions within 30 days of a deal closing.
Based on job listings compiled by 1111 Job Bank, companies in the construction and real-estate sectors held a more conservative attitude on hiring in the final quarter of last year than in the previous quarter.
Last month alone, the number of job openings in the construction and real-estate sectors dropped 14.11 percent from the previous month, larger than an average decline of 2.88 percent in overall openings, the job agency said in a press release on Jan. 12, two days ahead of the presidential and legislative elections.
“A number of real-estate brokerage franchises closed shop recently, causing some agents in the franchise offices to lose their jobs before the Lunar New Year,” 1111 Job Bank spokeswoman Charlene Chang (張旭嵐) said in the release.
“If market transactions cannot recover after the election, it is expected that more agents, especially those with very low base salaries but high bonuses, will have to change their careers after the Lunar New Year,” Chang said.
Weaker brokerages would be driven out of business after the government’s market transparency rules take effect in July, she added.
Chang’s remark, however, came in stark contrast to a string of expansion plans recently announced by major real-estate brokerages, which will add more than 600 new outlets, creating more than 20,000 jobs this year.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), the nation’s largest broker by number of outlets, including franchises and directly owned branches, plans to expand its number of outlets by 16 percent to 1,000 this year, Evertrust president Benson Liao (廖本勝) said on Dec. 27.
Sinyi Realty Co (信義房屋), the nation’s only listed real-estate broker, plans to hire 3,300 more employees and add 46 new offices this year — mainly in central and southern Taiwan — to boost the total number of outlets by 12 percent to 432 nationwide, chairman Chou Chun-chi (周俊吉) said on Jan. 2.
H&B Realty Co (住商不動產), a member of Sinyi Group, also plans to open an additional 100 outlets this year to bring the total to 555, Chou added.
Chang said the online job agency’s database did show more real-estate brokerages plan to increase hiring in the current quarter even as the housing market is projected to remain sluggish.
She said the hiring plans reflected major brokerages’ aggressiveness in maximizing market share, but it was also because the turnover rate is high in this line of business, so that brokerages have to keep hiring, she added.
“The real-estate brokerage sector is known for its long work hours and low base salaries,” Chang said. “This business has a very high turnover rate, as it usually takes new employees between three months and six months to complete a deal.”
Additional reporting by Crystal Hsu
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is