Commercial property transactions sank by more than 50 percent year-on-year last quarter, weighed by lingering uncertainty about the global economy and US quantitative easing, international property agencies said yesterday.
However, the market may regain some vigor this quarter, when the government and large companies are slated to auction superfices rights and office buildings in prime locations, they said.
Commercial property deals totaled NT$21.5 billion (US$726.11 million) during the July-to-September period, down 61 percent from the same period last year, with major deals including Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) acquiring an office building in Greater Taichung from China Metal Products Group (勤美建設) and Transglobe Life Insurance Inc (全球人壽) winning a 50-year superfices right in Yilan County’s Jiaosi Township (礁溪).
Last quarter’s figure still represented a 35 percent pickup from the second quarter, Jones Lang LaSalle said yesterday.
Data compiled by CBRE Taiwan, the local unit of the leading US real-estate service provider, show a higher transaction volume of NT$24.2 billion last quarter, although that was half the level of last year.
“The weak sentiment we saw during the first half [of the year] extended into the third quarter,” Jones Lang LaSalle Taiwan managing director Tony Chao (趙正義) told a media briefing.
While the Financial Supervisory Commission last month removed its ban on property investments by domestic life insurers, the requirement that they must offer a yield of 2.875 percent still capped the number of transactions, given the soaring property prices in Taipei, Chao said.
The market may recover some vitality this quarter, with no major disruptions in sight, while borrowing costs remain ultra-low, CBRE and Jones Lang LaSalle said, adding that the planned sales of landmark buildings should arouse keen buying interest going forward.
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) and Elitegroup Computer Systems Co (精英電腦) have announced plans to sell their headquarters in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) and Neihu District (內湖) respectively.
Additionally, the government is due to auction a 70-year lease for developing a more than 4,000 ping (13,200m2) plot on Dunhua North Road in Taipei.
The plot has a floor price of NT$11.44 billion, which translates into NT$2.82 million per ping, government data showed.
“The competition for superfices rights should inject some badly needed vigor to the commercial property market and allow the government to revitalize idle assets with private funds,” CBRE Taiwan managing director Joseph Lin (林俊銘) said.
Property transactions may reach between NT$30 billion and NT$40 billion this quarter, lifting full-year deals to NT$100 billion, Chao said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure