The sentiment gauge for presale and newly completed houses in northern Taiwan last month gained 4.2 points to 42.2, displaying the first “green light” in eight years as the market recovered from the COVID-19 outbreak, the Chinese-language My Housing Monthly said yesterday.
It is the first positive signal since May 2013, suggesting that steady growth prompted the central bank last month to ban grace periods for purchases of second homes in the nation’s six special municipalities along with Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County.
Nearly all constituent measures posted positive movements, buoyed by enhanced buying interest, sales and confidence on part of developers, the magazine said.
Photo: CNA
Developers launched nearly NT$100 billion (US$3.58 billion) of presale projects and newly completed houses for the fall sales season last month and this month, encouraged by a sharp decline in the number of local COVID-19 infections, the magazine’s head researcher Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said.
Buying interest soared as surveyed reception sites had an average of 33.7 teams of prospective buyers per week, compared with 24 per week in August, the magazine said.
Sales rates climbed to 3.8 deals per week, up from 2.4 one month earlier, it said.
Price concession rates marked the only sub-index with negative cyclical movement, as it inched up to 12.1 percent, from 12 percent one month earlier, it said.
Developers priced their products high and displayed more willingness to adjust to facilitate transactions, Ho said.
However, pricing gaps are expected to trend low with help from the government’s real-price disclosure requirements, he said.
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