Taiwan’s commercial property transactions more than doubled to US$2.6 billion last quarter, making it the sixth largest market in the Asia-Pacific region, Real Capital Analytics Inc (RCA) said in a report on Tuesday.
The increase in the nation came while the region saw a 38 percent decline during the same period, the report added.
The sale of a hotel in Taipei for nearly US$1 billion contributed largely to the upturn, the analyst said, adding that real-estate transactions in the industrial sector were strong on the back of robust trading.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan also climbed ahead of Singapore on the leaderboard of most active markets in the region, it said, adding that the first nine months of the year saw sales of US$3.9 billion.
“The escalation of trade tensions between China and the US has resulted in another wave of investment into manufacturing facilities across Asia. Taiwan was no exception, as industrial investment spiked last quarter to US$1.3 billion, a record high for a single quarter,” RCA senior analyst for Asia Pacific Benjamin Chow said.
Taiwan’s strong performance stands in stark contrast to the overall showing in the region where sales of commercial property fell 38 percent between July and September as the COVID-19 pandemic slowed cross-border deals, RCA said.
Income-producing property sales dropped to US$26 billion, down from US$33 billion in the previous quarter and US$42.2 billion a year earlier, it said.
Industrial sector activity matched the level of last year, but all other key property types in the region declined, with hotel and retail sales seeing the sharpest drop, the firm said.
Transactions involving individual properties increased from the second quarter to US$23 billion, boosted by a small amount of high-value deals, while portfolio sales fell to levels last seen during the 2008 global financial crisis, it said.
Sales of development sites, with a majority taking place in China, grew from a year earlier, with deal volume totaling US$162 billion, an 18 percent year-on-year increase, RCA said.
“The COVID-19 pandemic will continue to hamper deal-making for cross-border investors as economic uncertainty in many markets puts many of them on hold,” RCA managing director for Asia Pacific David Green-Morgan said.
Markets with robust domestic demand — such as South Korea, Japan and China — are holding up better in the current environment, Green-Morgan said.
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