Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said it expected the housing market to start rebounding from this quarter, as the global economy gradually recovers and the public becomes more familiar with the government’s real-estate transaction price registration policy.
However, the nation’s only listed real-estate broker said the uptrend would be modest, as economic fundamentals remain fragile.
“The housing market should have bottomed out in the third quarter,” Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), a manager at the broker’s market research department, told a quarterly conference with investors and analysts in Taipei.
The sluggish global economic sentiment and negative reaction to government policies, such as the increase in gas and electricity rates, were the main factors that dragged down property transactions this year, Su said.
However, sentiment is shifting as public pessimism over the economy and government policy is gradually waning, he said.
The government measure requiring real-estate buyers to register actual transaction prices — launched on Aug. 1 — should have a positive effect on the market through next year by helping boost price transparency.
“The measure had temporarily dragged down real-estate transactions, but it will enhance trading efficiency in the market [over the longer term] by offering clear information to both buyers and sellers,” he said.
A report issued by Fubon Securities Investment Services Co (富邦投顧) yesterday echoed Su’s views, saying that the housing market might see a slight recovery from the fourth quarter — when consumption hits its seasonal peak — in terms of both pricing and trading momentum.
Sinyi chief financial officer Sandy Chou (周素香) said the company’s office expansion plan for next year would be in line with the industry outlook, implying that the firm might slow its pace of expansion given still fragile global economic sentiment.
However, the broker is sticking to its strategy of focusing on Greater Taipei, where two-thirds of its outlets are located, given strong demand in the area, Chou said.
Sinyi launched 10 new outlets in the second half of this year, bringing its total number of offices in Taiwan to 390 as of the end of last month.
The broker posted a net income of NT$938.34 million (US$32.26 million), or earnings per share of NT$2.02, in the first nine months of the year, compared with a net profit of NT$929.44 million, or NT$2 per share, recorded a year earlier, company data showed.
Third-quarter net profit was NT$292.08 million, up 0.2 percent from a year earlier, but down 38 percent from the April-to-June period, statistics showed.
As for China, Chou said Sinyi would continue to look for appropriate targets to help it break even. Its net loss in China is expected to shrink 30 to 40 percent this year from a loss of NT$250 million last year.
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