Soaring housing prices in the greater Taipei area are driving home buyers to take up residency in neighboring Taoyuan County, where people who relocated have accounted for nearly 40 percent of housing transactions in the past two years, a survey released yesterday showed.
A southward migration has become more evident over this period as owning a home in Taipei City and New Taipei City (新北市) has grown increasingly untenable, said Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), the nation’s only listed company.
Those who relocated made up 39.5 percent of housing sales in Taoyuan County, which was followed by Greater Taichung at 37.8 percent and Hsinchu at 37.2 percent, the broker said.
UNAFFECTED
Taoyuan County, which takes about an additional 10 minutes to commute to Taipei City compared with parts of the greater Taipei area, remains unaffected by the recently implemented luxury tax, Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), head Sinyi researcher, said, adding that housing sales in the greater Taipei area dropped by 30 percent for two consecutive quarters.
According to Sinyi statistics, studio units in Taipei City sold for an average of NT$8.42 million (US$278,000). With the same money, a client could buy a three-bedroom apartment with a parking space in Taoyuan, Sinyi said.
This disparity in prices explains why many would move to Taoyuan, as three-bedroom apartments with parking spaces are the most sought-after properties among prospective buyers in Taipei City, Su said.
PRACTICAL MOVE
Public infrastructure projects, mainly the planned extension of Taipei’s mass rapid transit system to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, makes the move away from the capital both practical and desirable, Sinyi said.
Hsinchu, where major technology firms are headquartered, is also gaining popularity, Sinyi said, adding that job opportunities are playing a key role in facilitating migration to Hsinchu.
Jobs have also compelled people to move to Greater Taichung, the site of the Central Taiwan Science Park, Sinyi said.
An increasing number of people from Changhua and Nantou counties are relocating to Greater Taichung, pushing up housing prices there, the firm said.
By comparison, locals have underpinned housing transactions in Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung, where out-of-town newcomers accounted for less than 30 percent of transactions, Sinyi said.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
RSS