The number of homes in foreclosure fell to a record low during the first four months of the year, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday.
Lenders stepped into foreclose 1,350 homes during the January-to-April period, a fall of 20.1 percent year-on-year, as cash-strained sellers prefer to lower prices to meet debt payment obligations and avoid foreclosure, H&B researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said in a report.
The latest number is the lowest since the release of foreclosure data by the government in 2003, thanks to ample liquidity, low borrowing costs and eased credit controls, Hsu said.
“As long as troubled borrowers are willing to sell houses below market rates, they can find buyers and funds necessary to pay off debts,” Hsu said.
The option is more attractive than going through the foreclosure process, which can last for a protracted period of time and slash the value of homes.
Taipei was the only exception with the number of foreclosures rising 7.1 percent to 121 as of April, government data showed.
Growing unaffordability and holding costs in Taipei means it is difficult to find buyers, Hsu said.
Foreclosures were lowest in Taoyuan with only 65 cases, a drop of 28.6 percent from a year earlier, official data showed.
Tainan saw the biggest decline in the number of foreclosed homes, which stood at 115 as of April, a 34.3 percent decline from the same period last year.
Foreclosed homes dropped 25.7 percent year-on-year to 214 in Kaohsiung and retreated 17.9 percent to 138 in New Taipei City, the report said, adding that Taichung saw 148 foreclosed homes, down 2 percent from the same period last year.
Foreclosures happen when homeowners are unable to make full principal and interest payments on their mortgage, allowing lenders to seize the property.
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
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
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