Growth in new housing loans by the nation’s five leading banks slowed last month as the government moved to curb speculation in the real-estate market, the central bank said yesterday.
The five banks — the Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), the Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), the Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南商業銀行) and First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) — granted NT$45.94 billion (US$1.52 billion) in new housing loans last month, up NT$1.59 billion from March, the central bank said in its monthly statement.
That was significantly lower than the NT$13.06 billion month-on-month rise recorded in March, the statement said.
The bank attributed the slower increase in housing loans to the government’s move to raise the tax on non-owner-occupied property, which encouraged potential buyers to adopt a wait-and-see attitude.
Moreover, the stronger increase in mortgages with preferential interest rates for first-time homebuyers drove down the average interest rate on new housing loans by the five leading banks to 1.956 percent last month — the lowest level this year — from 1.967 percent in March, data showed.
Mortgages with preferential interest rates for first-time homebuyers totaled NT$8 billion last month, up from NT$7.6 billion in March, data showed.
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