Housing transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities last month rose 15.8 percent from April, signs that the property market remains on a course of recovery, brokers said.
A total of 17,652 units were sold last month in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, an increase of 15.8 percent from April, but a 0.9 percent decline from the same period last year, data from the six local governments showed.
“The month-on-month improvement lent support to a recovery, driven mainly by the completion of presale projects,” Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) said.
Builders and developers are scheduled to deliver presale residential projects launched two years ago, at the height of the market boom, brokers said.
The improvement was broad, with transactions rising 21.3 percent to 2,070 units in Taipei, official data showed.
Property deals rose 23 percent to 3,198 units in Kaohsiung, 18.2 percent to 4,296 units in New Taipei City, 18.2 percent to 1,688 units in Tainan, 13.7 percent to 3,035 units in Taoyuan and 5.2 percent to 3,365 units in Taichung, government data showed.
Price concessions helped spur buying interest and remain key to sustaining the recovery, said Jay Hsieh (謝志傑), spokesman of Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), the nation’s largest real-estate broker by number of offices.
Most buyers expect housing prices to adjust downward, Hsieh said, adding that properties with asking prices greater than on the government’s real-price Web site will have difficulty finding buyers.
Builders and developers are expected to roll out new home projects later this year with prices much lower than market rates, which would render existing properties less attractive without pricing flexibility, he said.
The year-on-year decline shows that the market has yet to solidify its recovery, he added.
Taiwan Realty forecast that for this year as a whole, housing transactions might fall by between 270,000 and 280,000 units, a 10 percent decrease from a record low last year.
The central government has dropped unfavorable rhetoric about the market and has encouraged urban renewal projects, the broker said.
The number of property transactions will have difficulty returning to the 300,000-unit per year level seen in previous years, as the nation’s population continues to decline and investors flee the market, it added.
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