Shining Building Business Co (鄉林建設) yesterday launched a new presale residential project in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊), as the company remains upbeat about the area’s growth potential.
The release of the project came as local developers seek to take advantage of a slow, but steady recovery in the market, fueled in part by capital repatriation, Shining Building chairman Lai Cheng-yi (賴正鎰) said.
“It is our fourth project in Sinjhuang, where major developers and companies have made a presence, attracted by improving infrastructure,” Lai told a news conference.
The area has seen a rapid increase in retailers, restaurants and apartment buildings thanks to its quick access to the MRT metropolitan railway system’s Xinzhuang Line and the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line’s A3 and A4 stations.
The new project is to feature 150 apartments ranging from 31 ping to 61 ping (102.5m2 to 201.7m2) with two to four bedrooms to accommodate buyers with different space needs, Lai said.
Lai declined to supply figures for the upcoming apartments, saying that similar products nearby cost between NT$465,000 and NT$480,000 (US$15,077 and US$15,564) per ping last quarter, a 6 percent increase from the fourth quarter of last year.
“The trend suggests that the market really has hit the bottom and embarked on a recovery, as evidenced by a pickup in mortgages and housing prices,” Lai said.
Subdued trade tensions between the US and China have eased worries due to economic uncertainty, and stricter asset disclosure rules in China and elsewhere are driving funds back to Taiwan, he said.
Taiwanese businesspeople have indicated a willingness to repatriate overseas earnings if the government would spare them of heavy income tax, said Lai, who is also the chairman of General Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of China.
The property tycoon raised his forecast for presale projects this year to NT$1.35 trillion, compared with an estimate of NT$1.2 trillion he made in December last year.
Shining Building has sold all of the presale project’s two-bedroom apartments, as small apartments are popular among first-time buyers and property investors, Lai said, adding that investors account for 30 percent of property sales.
Developers would launch new projects in the first half of this year and stay on the sidelines in the second half, as campaigns for next year’s presidential election gain heat and raise political uncertainty, he said.
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