The nation’s residential property market eased slightly last month from its peak in April, but the monthly indicator continued to flash a healthy “green” light for the third consecutive month, the Chinese-language Housing Monthly reported yesterday.
The indicator’s score dropped six points month-on-month to 45 last month.
“The score’s decline was the result of a cut in the supply of newly completed housing projects and pre-sale property units,” Chen Yun-ru (陳韻如), chief executive of the monthly’s Web site, said in a press statement released yesterday.
The number of property shoppers and closed deals, however, were little changed last month except for those in Hsinchu, because several leading property projects remain appealing to buyers, she said.
The worst decline in property shoppers was in in northern Hsinchu, where numbers dropped by between 40 percent and 60 percent month-on-month, while the region’s property supply hit a record high of more than NT$10 billion (US$309.8 million) last month, Chen said.
Nationwide, NT$53.3 billion in real estate was put up for sale last month, 25 percent below the previous month’s NT$71 billion, the magazine said in a press release. Despite last month’s bad economic news, such as Europe’s debt problems, the global slump in stocks and rising tensions between North and South Korea, property sales in greater Taipei saw the least impact, the magazine said.
Chen said the market would be mixed this month.
The planned trade pact with China and direct flights between Taipei and Shanghai will boost the market, she said.
However, the lingering deficit threat in European countries and a possible military confrontation in Korea will have a drag on consumer confidence, she said.
Nevertheless, land developers are expected to continue to market property sales as their advertising budgets hit a record high last month, the magazine said.
In related news, Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽) yesterday failed to liquidate two plots of land in Taipei and another plot of land in Taichung after no bidder participated in its auctions, local realtors said.
They said the land deals were over-priced, scaring away potential buyers.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior’s Construction and Planning Agency (營建署) yesterday successfully auctioned off one of several parcels of land in Tamsui, the realtors said.
The 9,075 ping (30,000m²) plot of land was acquired by Union Group (聯邦集團) for NT$2.154 billion, or NT$237,400 per ping.
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