Commercial property sales dropped 20 percent year-on-year to NT$8.9 billion (US$274.27 million) last quarter and the market might remain feeble, as high holding costs scare buyers away, despite lower interest rates and looser credit controls, international property brokers said.
“Price differences between sellers and buyers have slowed transactions and the central bank’s monetary easing last month served only to deepen the trend,” Billy Yen (顏炳立), general manager of real-estate consultancy firm DTZ (戴德梁行), said on Thursday.
Sellers would be less flexible after the central bank removed a mortgage cap of 60 percent for houses in Taipei and several areas of New Taipei City, while potential buyers’ expectations of price declines remain unabated, Yen said.
Investors have exited the market, leaving those with real demand to support the market as seen in the past few years, he said.
That explained why factory buildings led commercial property transactions from January to last month, according to DTZ data.
Likewise, land deals softened to NT$12.7 billion last quarter, falling close to levels seen during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and prompting the central bank to scrap the mortgage cap for land financing, Yen said.
“Price cuts, instead of interest-rate cuts, are necessary to invigorate the market,” Yen said, adding that buyers should deleverage to avoid heavier financial burdens.
Presale projects with sales rates of less than 10 percent should halt construction or builders could come under heavy pressure to raise funds if they press ahead, Yen said.
It is better to stay put until the market turns around, Yen said, adding that a recovery is not yet in sight judging from stifling transactions.
Jones Lang LaSalle Taiwan (JLL, 仲量聯行) gave similar projections, but pinned the blame on fast-growing holding costs, especially property taxes.
Increasing property taxes have made commercial properties in Taipei unattractive and unable to meet yield requirements, standing at 2.41 percent following three rate cuts of 12.5 basis points in the past six months, JLL Taiwan managing director Tony Chao (趙正義) said.
The Taipei City Government has raised property taxes for upscale buildings in prime locations, which has increased operating expenses by 10 percent for some property owners, Chao said.
Builders have to pay heavy property taxes if they fail to find buyers one year after completing work on new-home projects, he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”