The number of unoccupied houses nationwide totaled 876,000 units last year, or 11.94 percent of all houses, the Ministry of the Interior said in a report issued on Thursday.
Almost 30 percent of empty houses were owned by companies, suggesting that many corporate property owners engage in house hoarding, the ministry said.
Excluding developers and builders, companies still owned 20 percent of empty houses, it said.
Photo: CNA
The report is based on housing units’ electricity use and considers properties that use less than 60 kilowatt-hours per month as unoccupied.
The study contradicts Ministry of Finance reports saying that house hoarding subsided and there is no need for housing tax increases.
To rein in property price increases due to house hoarding, the central bank in March capped the loan-to-value ratio at 40 percent for firms and 50 percent for individuals buying their fourth or more.
The interior ministry found that New Taipei City had the highest number of unoccupied houses at 152,000, followed by Kaohsiung with 117,000; Taichung with 105,000; Taoyuan with 102,000; Tainan with 78,000; and Taipei with 68,000.
The report said that 33.47 percent of corporate-owned empty houses were held by companies that owned more than 10 houses.
Individual owners of more than 10 houses held 18.74 percent of all empty houses, it said.
A domestic COVID-19 outbreak in May prompted the central bank to postpone planned measures to rein in house hoarding, even though property and construction lending continued to rise, defying expectations of a downturn.
Separately, Miaoli County-based tile producer Champion Building Materials Co (冠軍建材) yesterday said that it is seeking to reverse losses this year by expanding its domestic market share and booking income from the sale of a production facility in China.
Champion last year incurred losses of NT$403 million (US$14.41 million), or losses per share of NT$0.93, the company told its annual general meeting in Jhunan Township (竹南) on Tuesday, citing sharp competition from low-end producers.
However, the situation might improve this year, as Champion sold an idle production facility in Kunshan, China, amid rising real-estate prices in the emerging high-tech production hub, it said.
The transaction generated NT$1.08 billion in profit, it said.
Revenue contribution from Champion’s China business was 25 percent last year, while the rest came from the domestic market, the company said.
Apple Inc’s iPhone 13 debut was met with a stock slump on Tuesday, keeping with a tradition of poor share price performance on the day new devices are unveiled. Shares of the technology giant sank after Apple executives, including chief executive officer Tim Cook, presented the new lineup of phones and other devices. The stock fell 1 percent to close at US$148.12 in New York trading. Prior to Tuesday, Apple’s shares fell on three-quarters of the days Apple unveiled new iPhones, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. Excluding Apple’s 8.3 percent rally on the day cofounder Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone in
As Google expands its footprint in Taiwan, it plans to recruit software and hardware talent for its Google Nest smart device team, a chip development team, and teams to support its Pixel and Chromebook products, Google Taiwan said yesterday. Supply chain management talent will also be in demand, the company said at an online event. “There will always be openings for software engineers, hardware engineers and project managers,” Google Taiwan human resources head Vanessa Lu (呂亞樵) said. “The strength of the Taiwanese industry is very clear,” Lu said, adding that the company would continue to invest in Taiwan. Lu also doused some
BEATING SCHEDULE: Government plans are for nacelle assemblies to be totally local from next year, but Orsted Taiwan said that it was going ‘above and beyond’ Wind turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA yesterday inaugurated Taiwan’s first nacelle assembly plant at the Port of Taichung, its first assembly facility for offshore nacelles outside Europe. Vice Premier Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津), a long-time champion of Taiwan’s ambitions to become a regional hub in the offshore wind farm industry, described the plant as a “milestone” at a ceremony at the plant. “The completion of Siemens Gamesa’s nacelle assembly plant is a milestone for the development of the offshore wind farm industry in Taiwan and a step toward localizing the supply chain,” Shen said. “This is only the beginning. My great hope
ROBUST DEMAND: 5G, AI and Internet of Things technologies are driving growth and employment, as the company plans a new plant in Hsinchu County Contract electronics manufacturer Wistron Corp (緯創) plans to invest about NT$11.1 billion (US$400.58 million) in Taiwan, in line with its global deployment strategy, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday. The company’s investment is also a demonstration of robust demand for 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things applications, the ministry said in a statement. Wistron, spun off from Acer Inc (宏碁) in 2001, is a notebook computer original design manufacturing partner to major PC brands. The company, which is based in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖), also produces servers, data storage devices, game consoles and communications products for brand clients
RSS