Housing transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities posted double-digit percentage declines last month, as poor weather and the Ghost Month softened buying interest, analysts said yesterday.
Property transfers totaled 14,059 units in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Tainan and Kaohsiung, data released by their local governments showed.
Taichung is due to release its figures today.
The results represented retreats of 18.7 percent to 28.6 percent from the levels seen in July, as a considerable number of people avoid making durable goods purchases during Ghost Month, while the summer vacation season also weighed on the market, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) spokesman Jay Hsieh (謝志傑) said.
Typhoons and tropical storms that brought wind and heavy rain also kept potential buyers at home last month, whether the storms made landfall or not, Hsieh said.
Transactions in Taipei fell 26.3 percent to 2,119 units, while they decreased by 22.1 percent to 4,665 units in New Taipei City.
The number of housing deals dropped 28.6 percent to 1,609 in Tainan, while they tumbled 25.6 percent to 2,412 in Kaohsiung.
Taoyuan reported a decline of 18.7 percent to 3,254 deals.
Meanwhile, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said the housing market remained positive, with a 2.9 percent increase in transactions compared with the same period last year.
Fewer working days last month had a negative effect on the market, Sinyi research head Tseng Ching-der (曾進德) said.
Some purchasers probably moved registrations to July or this month to avoid Ghost Month, he said.
The market should emerge from the seasonal disruption this month, he said.
In the first eight months of the year, housing transactions increased 7.3 percent compared with the same period last year, Tseng said.
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