The number of housing transactions in the six special municipalities last month totaled 17,173 units, a 2.5 percent increase from a month earlier as the property market emerged from Ghost Month and widespread flooding in the south.
The figure represented a 0.8 percent decline from the same period last year.
“The result is not bad,” Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) researcher Tseng Ching-der (曾進德) said.
Taipei reported the fastest monthly increase of 11.9 percent to 2,179 units, as real-estate demand underpinned trading, Taipei City Government statistics showed.
New Taipei City posted a 6.2 percent monthly increase to 4,848 deals, while transactions in Tainan rose 5.4 percent to 1,676 units and those in Taichung gained 1.2 percent to 3,008, local government statistics showed.
Eastern Realty Co (東森房屋) communications manager Layla Yu (于靜芳) said that buying interest was much stronger last month, but a considerable number of potential investors stayed on the sidelines over concerns about falling prices and global uncertainty.
Transactions in Taoyuan and Kaohsiung declined 3.3 percent and 4.5 percent respectively to 2,830 and 2,499 units, local government statistics showed.
Overall transactions in the six special municipalities in the third quarter fell 1 percent quarter-on-quarter to 52,010 units, but gained 3 percent from a year earlier, the data showed.
That lent support to a small, but steady recovery in the domestic property market, Sinyi Realty said.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) was less upbeat, saying that the annual increase is tapering, from an 8 percent gain in the first quarter to 4 percent in the third quarter, Evertrust researcher Jay Hsieh (謝志傑) said.
The increase is unlikely to gain traction this quarter due partly to a relatively higher base last year, Hsieh said.
Next month’s elections and the intensifying US-China trade war would deepen the cautious sentiment in the market, he said.
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