Presale housing projects in northern Taiwan dropped to a 14-year low of NT$11.8 billion (US$359.39 million) last month. The figure corresponds to an amount less than 30 percent of the total in June, as concerns over sluggish transactions drove developers to sit out the lunar Ghost Month.
Ghost Month, during which people tend to shun moving into new apartments, starting businesses or getting married in order to avoid bad luck, falls between Aug. 14 and Sept. 12 this year.
“Tradition aside, the nation’s poor economy and stock rout feed unease among prospective buyers,” Housing Monthly (住展雜誌) research manager Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said in a telephone interview.
The magazine’s monthly business climate gauge moved to “blue” last month, from “yellow-blue” in July, indicating that the presale housing market has entered a recession.
Developers and builders put up 22 presale projects in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Keelung and Yilan last month, with discounts of 25 percent to 60 percent, but failed to stir interest, Ho said.
Ho dismissed ongoing discount hype as mere advertisement rhetoric, to which potential buyers have grown immune, adding that many potential customers were asking for a 20 percent concession on floor prices.
The tug-of-war would continue to suppress future transactions unless the supply side made genuine and noticeable concessions, Ho said, adding that fundamentals were unfavorable for the sellers.
Property advertisements shrank 28.7 percent last month from July, as adverse weather conditions prevented prospective buyers from visiting construction sites, Ho said.
HouseFun, a property publication owned by Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), also voiced a dim view, saying there were only three presale housing projects valued more than NT$1 billion during Ghost Month.
HouseFun head Ni Tze-jen (倪子仁) said he excluded Yilan from his survey for the duration of Ghost Month.
By that account, the construction volume reached only NT$4.7 billion, down 95 percent from the same period last year standing at about NT$100 billion, Ni said.
The figures reflected a sharp downturn of confidence on the developers’ side and the conservative strategy was helping the market digest surplus supply, Ni said.
“It is time for a price correction in the market in order to relieve the stifled transactions after a decade of boom,” Ni said.
Bleak sales last month suggested an extended soft patch for the upcoming fall season that starts late this month and continues through October, Ni said.
The central bank should consider lifting mortgage restrictions from more districts in New Taipei City if it was serious about supporting the economy, Ni said.
The monetary policymaker last month removed the districts of Yingge (鶯歌) and Bali (八里) from the restriction list, saying credit controls proved effective in curbing property speculation in those districts.
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
RSS