The number of property transactions this year might drop below 250,000 units, as prospective buyers anticipate another price correction, while sellers refuse to concede, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said yesterday.
That would mark the lowest level since the government started its annual survey — falling below the 258,000 units recorded in 2001 after the tech bubble burst, Great Realty general manager H.C. Chen (陳錫琮) said.
The broker arrived at the forecast after the number of home sales nationwide shrank 16.4 percent year-on-year to 158,760 units in the first seven months of the year.
Photo: CNA
It said the market has yet to show signs of a recovery.
Expectations of further price falls and housing affordability have contributed to a sluggish market, while talk of unfavorable policies have deepened feelings of unease among potential buyers, Chen said, referring to suggestions of mandatory safety checks of homes older than 30 years prior to sales.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) floated the idea during a forum on Wednesday, which drew an outcry from brokers, saying the policy would sound the death knell for the sales of older homes.
The ministry sought to calm the market by calling Hua’s proposal premature.
Housing prices in different parts of the nation have corrected from a year ago, but the pace is not enough to attract buyers, Chen said, adding that greater concessions are necessary to end the stalemate.
The presale and new homes market might lead the price adjustments, as seen in some presale projects near MRT stations in New Taipei City, he said.
Chen said developers can afford to lower their price tags by offering smaller units that use less expensive designs and materials.
Such a pricing strategy would have an impact on existing homes in adjacent areas, he said.
The decline in the number of real-estate brokers, another indicator of the local property market, confirmed the downtrend in the housing market, Chen said.
There are 5,972 registered brokers this year, a drop of 6.1 percent from last year and the lowest level in three years, according to Great Home, which is the second brand of H&B Realty Co (住商不動產).
Unfazed by the softening market, Great Home aims to increase its number of outlets from 87 to 100 by the end of this year, as its local peers might want to join the company, Chen said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
RSS