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.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.
RSS