The housing market fared better than expected this quarter, the slow season due to summer vacations and Ghost Month, as major real-estate brokers raised their full-year forecasts and said the number of transactions would increase 10 percent year-on-year.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), the nation’s largest real-estate broker by number of offices, expects the number of transactions to hover at about 270,000 to 285,000 units this year, or up 16 percent from last year.
The latest figures suggest a significant uptick from three months earlier as Ghost Month, which fell between Aug. 22 and Sept. 19 this year, proved less formidable than expected, Evertrust general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) told a news conference in Taipei on Wednesday.
Property deals stood at 178,043 units nationwide in the first eight months of the year, a 15.4 percent gain from the same period last year, government data showed, he said
“A stable economic recovery and low interest rates underpinned the improvement, but house prices remain under pressure,” Yeh said.
An internal survey conducted by Evertrust showed that 52 percent of respondents expect house prices to soften in the next three months.
The sentiment is bleakest in Taipei and New Taipei City, where 57 percent and 55 percent of respondents expect price corrections respectively, the survey found.
House prices have declined 14 percent in the Greater Taipei area since their peak in 2014, Yeh said.
Residents elsewhere are more positive, with a majority in Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung expecting prices to hold steady or increase, the survey showed.
Evertrust forecast a 10 percent upturn in the number of transactions next quarter from a year earlier.
H&B Realty Co (住商不動產), the largest broker by number of franchises, reached a similar conclusion, saying that the residential property market could stage a 10 percent gain to between 268,000 units and 286,000 units this year.
“Building permits, mortgage loans and other data all show signs of recovery supported by self-occupancy demand,” H&B researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
If the improvement continues, the number of transactions has a chance of approaching the critical 300,000-unit mark next year, she said.
Unlike its peers, which have downsized their operations, Great Home Realty (大家房屋), an affiliated brand of H&B Realty, has expanded and its number of stores now exceed 100, H&B general manager H.C. Chen (陳錫琮) said, adding that the company would continue its dual-brand expansion strategy.
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