It took an average of 95.2 days to sell a home in the first half of the year, the best showing for the housing market since 2016, when the government introduced combined property taxes, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday.
The length was longer than 100 days after the government in 2016 instituted combined property taxes that subjected homes resold within two years of purchase to income taxes of 35 to 45 percent, the real-estate broker said.
This month, combined property taxes, intended to discourage short-term speculation, were extended to homes resold within five years of purchase, in response to a rise in property prices across Taiwan over the past few years on the back of record-low interest rates and ample liquidity.
The sales period was shortest for homes in Tainan, selling on average 77.2 days after being put on the market, followed by 89.8 days in New Taipei City, said Mandy Lang (郎美囡), research manager at Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋), an affiliate of H&B Realty.
The two areas have benefited from Taiwanese companies returning from China and local tech firms expanding active capacity, Lang said.
Similar reasons helped homes in Kaohsiung find buyers in 91.6 days from being put on the market and 92.8 days in Taoyuan, she said.
The period was the longest in Taipei, at 125.5 days, due to low affordability, and averaged 109.1 days in Taichung, where housing prices climbed rapidly over the past year.
Homes in southern Taiwan have been popular in the past few years due to their relative affordability, but sufficient infrastructure would determine whether the trend would continue in the long run, H&B chief researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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