Presale and new housing projects in Taipei totaled NT$189.8 billion (US$6.43 billion) in the first seven months of this year, with urban regeneration projects accounting for 65 percent, as they increasingly become the main source of properties due to a shortage of new land, the Chinese-language My Housing Monthly reported yesterday.
Renewal projects based on old and dilapidated houses in Taipei reached NT$124.2 billion from January to last month, supplying a record 65 percent to the city’s new housing volume as idle lots of land are hard to find, the magazine said.
“‘Knock down and rebuild’ has become the main focus of developers still eyeing the Taipei market,” My Housing Monthly research manager Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
In the past, time-consuming regeneration projects were a secondary concern, but they have gained importance over the past few years after policymakers provided regulatory support and banks are eager to supply funding.
Renewal projects last year accounted for 43 percent of presale and new housing, up from 33 percent in 2018, the magazine said.
The trend is not surprising as 70 percent of Taipei’s buildings are at least 30 years old — much higher than the national average of 47 percent — while the city has 30,000 buildings that are older than 50, government data showed.
The scarcity of land leaves developers interested in Taipei with no choice but to turn old and unsafe buildings into sources of new housing projects, Ho added.
Regeneration projects underpin new housing in the Xinyi (信義), Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山), Daan (大安), Wanhua (萬華), Nangang (南港), Neihu (內湖) and Shihlin (士林) districts, the magazine reported.
The projects account for 100 percent of new housing in Songshan and 95 percent in Nangang, indicating that the trend is gaining momentum in both central and second-tier locations, it said.
“Developers and builders need to jump on the ‘knock down and rebuild’ wagon whether they like it or not,” Ho said, adding that regeneration projects are likely to constitute more than 50 percent of new housing for years to come.
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