The housing market in northern Taiwan remained sluggish last month, a survey released on Thursday last week by Chinese-language My Housing Monthly showed.
The housing index compiled by the magazine fell three points from a month earlier to 33.7, but remained in the “yellow-blue” category, which is from 32 to 42 points, for the 12th consecutive month, it said.
Under My Housing Monthly’s color-coded system, “red” indicates overheating, “yellow-red” shows fast growth, “green” represents stable growth, “yellow-blue” signals sluggish growth and “blue” indicates contraction.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The index covers major counties and cities in northern Taiwan — such as Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu and Yilan counties — which accounts for more than 50 percent of total residential and commercial property transactions in the country.
Ho Shih-chang (何世昌), a research manager at the magazine, said the decline largely reflected fragile confidence among property developers and real-estate firms, which led to a decline in the amount of property put up for sale last month, a traditional slow season.
However, buyers with real demand still purchased property, lending some support to the entire market in the month, Ho said.
Among the six factors in the index, the sub-indices for listings of new residential property projects, listings of newly built residential properties and housing advertising volume fell to 6.90, 2.76 and 3.28 respectively, from 7.99, 4.44 and 3.88 a month earlier, the survey showed.
Amid cautious sentiment among developers, new residential property listings in northern Taiwan totaled about NT$30 billion (US$1.06 billion) last month, down from about NT$50 billion in January, Ho said.
Bucking the downturn, the sub-index on home price negotiations rose to 8.21 from January’s 7.86, the survey showed.
The sub-indices on visits to properties by potential buyers and total transactions remained unchanged at 6.92 and 5.63 respectively, the poll showed.
The survey was conducted before the government unveiled its latest measures to rein in speculation in the property market.
The Executive Yuan on Thursday last week approved a draft amendment to the Income Tax Act (所得稅法), imposing heavier taxes on property sellers for transactions if they sell property within a fixed period.
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