Transactions for existing homes in the nation’s six special municipalities declined further last month from the previous year, but picked up from a month earlier, as sellers showed more pricing flexibility while buyers expected greater concessions.
Housing deals in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung — which accounted for about 80 percent of sales nationwide — dropped by 10 percent to 20 percent last month from the same period last year, but increased 6.33 percent to 18,287 units from 17,199 a month earlier, the individual city governments said on their Web sites.
The results suggest that the market has yet to emerge from a downturn, but might see more transactions before next year’s implementation of a new capital gains tax on property deals.
The new rules call for a levy of 15 to 45 percent on gains from property transactions, depending on the length of ownership.
Housing transactions in Taipei edged down 1.33 percent year-on-year to 2,449 units, but increased 13.85 percent from May, the city government said.
New Taipei City saw 4,132 deals, down 22.56 percent from a year earlier, but up 5.65 percent from May, city government statistics showed.
“The figures suggested an extended soft period as buyers continued to hesitate, even though some sellers were more willing to lower prices,” Taiwan Realty (台灣房屋) spokeswoman Charlene Chang (張旭嵐) said in a note.
Likewise, housing transactions in Taoyuan contracted 11.23 percent to 3,359 cases from a year earlier, but rose 11.82 percent from May.
Property developers and brokers have forecast a stabilizing market upon the settlement of the property tax aimed at making the taxation system more reasonable and discouraging short-term speculation.
Some buyers and sellers might want to close deals before the implementation of the new tax to save tax burdens, developers and brokers have said.
Transactions also fell 11.21 percent year-on-year to 3,819 units in Taichung last month, the city government said, adding that the number represented an 11.8 percent increase from May.
Tainan reported an annual retreat of 0.29 percent in property deals at 1,707, which translated into a 5.96 percent gain from May.
Kaohsiung proved the only exception without a monthly rebound, as home transactions in the southern city declined 9.18 percent to 2,821 units from one month earlier and slid 18.89 percent from a year earlier, city government data showed.
Taiwan Realty attributed the poor showing to a relatively high base in April.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by