Housing transactions last month retained their resiliency from October, as inflation concerns supported buyer interest, but the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 increased uncertainty over a global recovery, local property brokers said yesterday.
Evertrust Rehousing Co (永慶房屋) said that housing deals at its offices across Taiwan last month stayed on a par with October, in line with seasonality.
This quarter is the peak sales season and the momentum might last ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, Evertrust research department deputy head Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said.
Photo: Annabelle Chih, Reuters
A stable economy, mounting inflationary pressures and low interest rates all bode well for property sales, as real estate remains a solid choice among Taiwanese to defend against inflation, Chen said, adding that buyers would close on properties they consider to be fairly priced.
Buyers had better exercise caution when balancing their finances with interest in buying real estate, as the central bank might raise interest rates next year to help rein in inflation, she said.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said that it saw housing transactions last month grow 2 percent from October, mainly due to relocation and investment needs.
Toward the end of the month, apartments priced at more than NT$20 million (US$719,166) gained appeal, and trading in Taipei and New Taipei City is catching up with sales in central and southern Taiwan, Sinyi said.
Plans by major local tech firms to set up new plants in Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung have significantly pushed up housing prices in those areas, and buyers have grown cautious, it said.
However, the market appeared unaffected by the central bank’s tightening of rules regarding second-home mortgages in the six special municipalities and Hsinchu city and county, Sinyi research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾進德) said.
Tseng voiced concern that the monetary policymaker might introduce further credit controls so that the housing market has a “soft landing.”
H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) reported that trading last month fell 6.6 percent from October, while Chinatrust Real Estate Co (中信房屋) reported a 3.5 percent decline, as buyers and sellers increasingly disagreed on pricing.
H&B said that sellers in Kaohsiung drastically raised their asking prices after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) announced plans to build new factories in the southern city, which scared away buyers.
Chinatrust said that the outlook for property sales looks bright if Taiwan can ward off uncertainty linked with the Omicron variant.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS