Housing transactions last month soared from a year earlier, although the deals held steady compared with July’s, major property brokers said yesterday, attributing the results to real demand and low interest rates.
Last month’s showings came even though Ghost Month started on Aug. 19 and is to last through Sept. 16. Taiwanese tend to avoid buying properties during the annual lunar Ghost Month, which is considered inauspicious for completing real-estate transactions, business openings, getting married and many other activities.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), the nation’s largest real-estate broker by the number of offices, said its tallies showed a 58 percent spike in property deals nationwide, as people regained confidence in the property market given that Taiwan appears to have the COVID-19 outbreak well under control.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
“Real demand underpinned 60 to 70 percent of the deals,” Evertrust Rehouse spokesman Jay Hsieh (謝志傑) said, adding that investment and asset allocation needs also contributed 20 percent after staying on the sidelines for several years.
Record-low interest and ample liquidity probably accounted for the resurgence in interest, Hsieh said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted central banks around the world to cut interest rates to ultra-low levels or negative territory to avert a credit crunch and support economic growth.
The strategy appeared to be effective in driving partial idle money from savings deposits to the property market, Hsieh said.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), the nation’s sole listed broker, said it observed a 33 percent bounce in property transactions as of Sunday, bucking the slow seasonality.
People who might have decided to wait and see during Ghost Month in previous years turned active this year, Sinyi research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾進德) said.
Travel bans also lent support, as they allow Taiwanese to spend more time looking for houses rather than vacationing abroad, he said.
The improvement was most evident in Taipei, where property transactions rose 43 percent from a year earlier on the back of demand from first-time home buyers and people seeking to relocate, Sinyi’s statistics showed.
Apartments priced from the NT$10 million to NT$15 million (US$338,685 to US$508,027) as well as those in the NT$20 million to NT$30 million range are the most popular, Tseng said.
Chinatrust Real Estate Co (中信房屋) said its business held steady last month without the usual seasonal decline caused by Ghost Month, thanks to pent-up demand and low borrowing costs.
The absence of typhoons also helped shore up buying interest, it said.
Buying interest picked up about 20 percent last month from a year earlier, all three firms said, but added that the pandemic would remain a downside risk for the rest of this year.
US PROBE: The Information reported that the US Department of Commerce is investigating whether the firm made advanced chips for China’s Huawei Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract maker of advanced chips, yesterday said it is a law-abiding company, and is committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations including export controls. The Hsinchu-based chip giant issued the statement after US news Web site The Information ran a story saying that the US Department of Commerce has launched a probe into TSMC over whether it breached export rules by making smartphone or artificial intelligence (AI) chips for China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為). “We maintain a robust and comprehensive export system for monitoring and ensuring compliance,” the statement said. “If we
DEMAND FOR AI CHIPS: Net income in the third quarter surged 31.2% quarter-on-quarter to NT$325.26 billion, the strongest quarterly return in the company’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday raised its revenue forecast to annual growth of 30 percent this year, thanks to strong and sustainable demand for artificial intelligence (AI) processors for servers. It was the second upward adjustment from 25 percent year-on-year growth estimated three months ago, despite recent concerns about whether the AI boom could be another technology bubble. “The demand is real. It’s real. And I believe it is just the beginning of this demand. Alright, so one of my key customers said the demand right now is ‘insane,’” TSMC chairman and chief executive C.C.
Starbucks Corp might have the more recognizable name, but 7-Eleven’s City Cafe remains the king of Taiwan’s fresh coffee market, helped by the convenience store chain’s extensive market presence and product diversification. President Chain Store Corp (PCSC, 統一超商), which runs both the 7-Eleven and Starbucks store chains in Taiwan, established the City Cafe brand in 2004. The brand took off when actress Gwei Lun-mei (桂綸鎂) became its spokesperson in 2007. City Cafe’s sales exceeded NT$10 billion (US$311.69 million) for the first time in 2015, surpassing the revenue of Starbucks Taiwan, and rose to more than NT$17 billion last year, exceeding the NT$14.98
COUNTRY-BASED: Setting ceilings on sales of the technology would tighten limits that originally targeted China’s ambitions in artificial intelligence amid security risks US officials have discussed capping sales of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips from Nvidia Corp and other American companies on a country-specific basis, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would limit some nations’ AI capabilities. The new approach would set a ceiling on export licenses for some countries in the interest of national security, according to the people, who described the private discussions on condition of anonymity. Officials in the administration of US President Joe Biden focused on Persian Gulf countries that have a growing appetite for AI data centers and the deep pockets to fund them, the people