The nation’s presale property market was last month “yellow-blue,” indicating that it has started to recover, although buying interest and advertisements slowed slightly from October, Chinese-language Housing Monthly (住展雜誌) magazine reported yesterday.
Housing Monthly’s market sentiment gauge was 33.5 last month, the third-highest reading this year, but down 0.8 points from one month earlier, as developers and builders recovered confidence and put more houses on the market.
The improvement in confidence came even though companies placed fewer advertisements to promote sales and potential buyers made fewer visits to construction sites, the survey found.
“Overall, the market remains on the course of recovery, as evidenced by strong sales of presale projects in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋),” Housing Monthly research manager Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said.
Price concessions and a strategy of setting prices at NT$400,000 (US$13,322) per ping (3.3m2) have proved successful in facilitating transactions, he said.
The magazine uses a five-color system to describe the local property market, with “red” indicating overheating, “yellow-red” showing fast growth, “green” representing stable growth, “yellow-blue” signaling transition and “blue” indicating contraction.
The total value of presale and new housing projects last month soared past the NT$100 billion mark after approaching the threshold in October, as developers and builders became more active after Ghost Month, Ho said.
As a result, total sales in northern Taiwan alone totaled NT$779.04 billion in the first 11 months of this year and are expected to surpass NT$810 billion for the whole year, he said.
That would beat the publication’s previous forecast for a mild correction this year.
However, advertisements last month dropped 12 percent from October, the magazine said, adding that 90 percent promoted old projects.
Builders and developers have showed a penchant for New Taipei City, which has been home to NT$364.59 billion of new projects this year, Housing Monthly said, adding that Sinjhuang District (新莊) tops the city’s ranking in sales volume, followed by Sindian (新店), Banciao and Sijhih (汐止) district.
While the supply side regained some confidence, prospective buyers might needed more persuasion, the magazine said, adding that the number of prospective buyers last month declined 20 percent from October.
Buying interest might continue to cool this and next month as people are preoccupied with preparations for the Lunar New Year holiday, Ho said.
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