The value of new presale and housing products launched last quarter totaled NT$324.8 billion (US$11.43 billion), a 9.2 percent increase from a year earlier, a survey released by Cathay Real Estate Development Co (國泰建設) showed on Wednesday.
“The market is recovering, as we can see from the trading volume and prices,” Cathay Real Estate said in a quarterly report.
Presale and new housing prices averaged NT$300,200 per ping (3.3m2) nationwide last quarter, it said.
Photo: CNA
Prices in Taipei grew faster than in other areas, to NT$865,800 per ping, while prices reached NT$400,300 per ping in New Taipei City, Cathay Real Estate said.
Housing prices are relatively affordable at NT$267,200 per ping in Taoyuan, NT$257,100 per ping in Taichung, NT$235,300 per ping in Tainan and NT$239,600 per ping in Kaohsiung, it said.
Apartment prices rose 9.3 percent year-on-year across Taiwan, with price increases of 6.47 percent in Taichung and 13.63 percent in Tainan, it said.
However, New Taipei City bucked the uptrend with a 1.29 percent decline, Cathay Real Estate added.
While apartments are the dominant housing type in northern Taiwan, and townhouses are more common in the south, it said.
Overall, the market remained healthy after the central bank in early December introduced new credit controls to curb property speculation and the legislature passed rules requiring greater transparency on transaction data, Cathay Real Estate said.
The National Development Council’s plan to create a business climate index to monitor changes in the housing market would help policymakers better understand developments in the sector, it said.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
RSS