The commercial property market might recover mildly this quarter as some developers start to build inventory and others come under pressure to digest idle funds, international property consultancy CBRE Taiwan said yesterday.
“While the market remains soft, we have spotted signs of a recovery,” CBRE Taiwan managing director Joseph Lin (林俊銘) told a media briefing, pointing to the auctions on Tuesday of land near the high speed railway stations in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung and Tainan.
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s largest insurer by assets and market share, won three lots in Taoyuan and Hsinchu for a total of NT$3.12 billion (US$99.45 million), with plans to develop commercial space later, Lin said.
The deal lent further support to the view that domestic life insurers have recovered their interest in local real estate after four interest rate cuts lowered the minimum yield requirement to 2.345 percent.
Last quarter, Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽) acquired an office building in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) for NT$4.08 billion, Lin said.
Life insurers have sought to increase real-estate stakes at home and abroad that can meet yield requirements and gain in capital value — an increasingly difficult task after major central banks cut interest rates to spur growth, which has constrained profitability.
Sakura Development Co (櫻花建設) acquired a residential plot in Taichung for NT$253.66 million, while Fabulous Group (將捷建設) bought another plot for NT$739.88 million, government data showed.
Sakura Development beat 12 rivals by offering a 47 percent premium over the floor price, indicating strong demand for real estate in prime locations, Lin said.
Builders are likely to develop these lots into apartment complexes, but might delay their launch until the housing market has regained more confidence, Lin said.
Commercial property sales — including land deals — could reach NT$90 billion for the full year, after hitting NT$37.2 billion last quarter, CBRE Taiwan said.
This represented an increase of 11 percent from the same period last year, the local unit of the California-based broker said.
Domestic developers have increasingly turned their attention to Southeast Asia, especially Vietnam, in a bid to take advantage of the government’s “new southbound policy,” Lin said.
The policy aims to guide Taiwanese exporters to diversify their product lines and markets outside of China.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS