Real-estate transactions might slow down, despite a modest gain in the first half of the year, as demand alone is not enough to uphold the market, Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan said yesterday.
The total number of property deals this year might hover at about 260,000 units, behind last year’s 266,000, as buyers and sellers remain divided on property values, Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) said.
“Willful buyers who underpinned the market in previous few years want to cash out now ... but they refuse to concede and drag out the drama,” Yen told a news conference.
It is not wise to ask for unreasonable prices, Yen said, adding that a lack of concessions has rendered transactions difficult, if not impossible.
Housing deals in the nation’s six special municipalities in the first half of the year increased 5 percent year-on-year to 103,374 units, data compiled by local governments showed, lending support to Yen’s full-year projection.
Inflexibility on the part of sellers has denied the market the chance to bottom out and has delayed recovery, he said.
Jones Lang LaSalle Inc Taiwan managing director Tony Chao (趙正義) agreed that sellers and buyers fail to see eye to eye on property worth, adding that the gap between them is huge.
Meanwhile, commercial property transactions in the first six months of the year amounted to NT$30.59 billion (US$1 billion), nearly tripling from the same period last year, Cushman & Wakefield said.
The increase is mainly attributable to Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) acquiring an office building in Taipei as its temporary headquarters while the old one is renovated, Yen said, adding that self-occupancy is not enough to invigorate the market.
The value of land deals, including superfice rights, equaled NT$47.3 billion in the first half of the year as developers rebuilt inventory, Cushman & Wakefield property appraisal director Charlie Yang (楊長達) said.
Land deals for the rest of the year might receive further support from the high-profile auctions of Core Pacific City Mall (京華城) and the proposed “Taipei Twin Towers” project, Yang said.
Inventory-building might add pressure for price corrections next year and beyond if developers fail to find buyers for their existing products, Yen said.
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