Housing market transactions are likely to shrink by 10 percent over the rest of the year after falling 11 percent in the first half, as buyers turn cautious ahead of the seven-in-one elections in November, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) said yesterday.
Home transactions dropped between 5.6 percent and 15.8 percent in the five major municipalities and Taoyuan County in the first five months from levels a year ago, Evertrust general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) said.
“Political uncertainty alone suffices to moderate the market moving forward, sparing the central bank the need to expand selective credit control” to cover more areas of New Taipei City, Yeh said.
The central bank plans to tighten lending terms for homes New Taipei City’s Wugu (五股) and Taishan (泰山) districts given the sharp price hikes there in recent years, local media have reported.
Yeh shrugged off the possibility, saying the number of potential buyers in the two areas have plunged 50 percent this year.
The sales between late March and April proved disappointing for presale projects nationwide and the outlook ahead appears rougher, Yeh said, citing the government’s gradual, but steady, effort to raise house holding costs.
The government is looking to extend the price registration requirement to presale home projects and increase assessed house values until they are on par with market prices to curb speculation and boost the treasury, Yeh said.
Those moves will drive more investors out of the market and slow property fund migrations to the south, he said.
Home prices have been holding steady so far, and may continue to find support, he said.
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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
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