State-run Taiwan Asset Management Corp (TAMC, 台灣金聯) yesterday said that it has won an auction for 44 apartments in New Taipei City that it plans to renovate and then rent out.
The nation’s largest bad-loan operator said that it acquired all the apartments in a complex integrated with MRT Cailiao Station that is owned by the Taipei City Government’s Department of Rapid Transit Systems, despite being in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重).
The purchase cost an average of NT$500,000 (US$16,457) per ping (3.3m2), slightly less than market rates for nearby apartments, the Taipei-based company said.
TAMC said that it plans to renovate the apartments before putting them back on the market.
“The apartments would prove good investments in light of their convenient location, only one MRT stop away from Taipei,” TAMC acting chairman Kuo Wen-jin (郭文進) said, referring to the metropolitan rail network.
There are 20 bus routes linking the complex with Taipei and it would take only 10 minutes by car to arrive at the Ximending (西門町) shopping area, Kuo said.
While an outbreak of COVID-19 in China is cooling the property market, Kuo said that it is wise to invest in times of crisis, which would make things cheaper and more profitable once the disease is contained.
TAMC is targeting young tenants who cannot afford to buy their own homes, he said.
The purchase is also in line with the company’s efforts to diversify its sources of income, which used to rely solely on reselling bad assets, a business model that is in dire need of change as the nation’s pool of nonperforming loans dwindles.
TAMC, created by state-run and private lenders to help digest toxic assets, has expanded into property management and real-estate development to pursue stable earnings. Rents account for 30 percent of its revenue.
TAMC has also teamed with Evergreen Resort Hotel Jiaosi (長榮鳳凰酒店) to turn an idle building in Taichung into an upscale hotel that could start operations later this year.
The hotel would have 280 guestrooms in a building with 10 above-ground floors and one basement, the company said.
TAMC is also developing a residential complex near National Chengchi University that could generate NT$200 million in sales if all units are sold.
The company is also mulling developing industrial complexes to take advantage of companies shifting production bases away from China.
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