Home sales dropped 10 percent this month from the previous month because of bad weather, tightened mortgage rules for buyers of luxury homes and the euro-debt crisis, real-estate agent Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said yesterday.
Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), a senior researcher with the property firm, said eurozone debt worries dampened home buyers’ confidence, while torrential rains brought by two storms and a frontal system earlier this month reduced the number of days people could go house-hunting.
Potential buyers of more expensive units were also put off by a new regulation limiting loans to a maximum of 60 percent of the purchase price on houses in Taipei and New Taipei City (新北市) that are priced at NT$80 million (US$2.67 million) and above, Su said.
Despite these negative factors, sales of residential units in some larger metropolitan areas, such as Hsinchu and parts of Taipei, remained steady, he said.
Hsu Wei-hung (許維鴻), the director of Sinyi Realty’s branch in Wenshan District (文山) in Taipei, said sales in the area did not fall despite flooding there during a recent storm.
Potential home buyers actually gained confidence, he said, because they were able to clearly see which areas were vulnerable to flooding and expect the city government to solve the flooding problem in the future.
Transaction prices in northern Taiwan remained in the high range this month, Su said, averaging NT$180,300 per square meter in Taipei City and NT$91,700 per square meter in New Taipei City.
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