The property market indicator in northern Taiwan was “blue” last month, pointing to contraction amid uncertainty over the local elections, a survey by the Chinese-language Housing Monthly (住展雜誌) showed.
According to the survey, the housing index for northern Taiwan fell 3.7 points from October to 27.2 points, the lowest this year, the magazine said.
Under the magazine’s color-coded system, red indicates overheating, yellow-red shows fast growth, green represents stable growth, yellow-blue signals sluggish growth and blue indicates contraction.
Property developers put their listings of newly built homes and presale projects on hold, as people were cautious about buying ahead of the elections, Housing Monthly research manager Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said in a statement.
In addition, many property developers last month cut their advertising by almost half compared with the previous month, due to the political uncertainty, Ho said.
Of the six factors in the property market composite index, four dropped last month, while the sub-indices for home price negotiations and the number of visits by potential buyers remained unchanged at 5.12 and 4.24 respectively, the survey showed.
The sub-indices for listings of newly built residential property, listings of presale residential property projects, advertising for housing sales and transactions fell to 7.26, 3.32, 3.58 and 3.75 respectively, from 8.35, 4.44, 4.48 and 4.22 a month earlier.
Ho said the housing index is likely to rebound this month, as it is the peak season, with many property developers launching promotions to attract customers, but it remains to be seen whether the index will climb out of the blue range.
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