Suite prices have climbed significantly in central Taipei districts in recent years as larger abodes became increasingly unaffordable in the city, according to a report released yesterday.
Suite prices increased 10 percent in Zhongshan District (中山) regardless of their age with costs for three-year-old suites rising 20 percent due to strong demand and limited supply, according to Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), the nation’s largest real-estate agency by number of offices.
Consequently, suite prices rose to NT$830,000 per ping (3.3m2) in the district last quarter, a record high since the government introduced the real-price registration measure in August last year, Evertrust researcher Andy Huang (黃舒衛) said.
The latest figures represent a 20 percent increase from NT$696,000 per ping in August last year for three-year-old suites in the district, the report said.
Huang attributed the quick advance to the district’s easy access to the MRT system, hotels, department stores and boutiques.
The district includes the Formosa International Hotel (晶華酒店), the Ambassador Hotel (國賓大飯店), the Okura Prestige Taipei (大倉九和), Hsin-Hsin Showtime Cinemas (欣新影城) and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越).
“Transportation and shopping convenience explains why the district accounted for 37.5 percent of suite deals in the city, topping other administrative areas for the past year,” Huang said in the report.
Daan District (大安) ranked second with 9.5 percent, followed by Beitou District (北投) with 6.8 percent and Wenshan District (文山) with 6.2 percent, the report said, citing government data.
Older suites five, 10 and 20 years old in Zhongshan District had a 10 percent average price increase, the report said.
A shortage of land and high demand drive builders to construct either luxury apartments or suites, Huang said.
Lower entry thresholds have helped suites to regain popularity after stiffer mortgage terms once kept buyers away from them, Huang said
They tend to be more susceptible to price corrections in times of distress, he added.
Looking forward, Evertrust said suite prices in Zhongshan District may climb higher in the coming few years, as the MRT Songshan Line is due to start operating by the end of next year, bringing more shoppers from other areas to the district.
Chinese tourists, in particular, have shown a penchant for shopping at the exotic boutiques on Zhongshan N Road, Huang said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained