Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan (戴德梁行) yesterday said it remains conservative about the property market this year, despite an improvement in commercial property and land deals last year.
Commercial property transactions last year totaled NT$99.6 billion (US$3.23 billion), up 14 percent from NT$71.15 billion in 2017 and the highest since 2012, tallies by the consultancy showed.
The pickup came as a surprise, because the agency previously forecast that the transactions for the whole of last year would remain the same as 2017.
Demand from financial and technology firms fueled the increase, accounting for 57 percent of the all transactions, followed by industrial and retail demand making up 21 and 18 percent respectively, the firm’s research director Wendy Hsueh (薛惠珍) told a media briefing.
E.Sun Bank (玉山銀行) and Sunny Bank (陽信銀行) helped push up transactions with NT$13.7 billion of deals, allowing fourth-quarter figures to rise to NT$42.6 billion, Hsueh said.
Land deals amounted to NT$178 billion for the whole of last year, increasing 44 percent from a year earlier, Cushman & Wakefield said, adding that this was a six-year high.
Residential plots made up 92 percent of the 10 major land deals last year, up from 68 percent in 2017, while the industrial plots did not make it to the top 10 list, it said.
Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) said he would remain conservative about the residential property market this year, as sellers demand unreasonable prices and stall transactions.
Sellers should concede and cash out, he added.
As of November last year, housing transactions stood at 254,426 units, an increase of 5.59 percent from 240,955 in 2017, but the number has not returned to a healthy level of 300,000 units, he said.
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