Housing transactions might hold steady or rise a mild 3 percent next year on top of an estimated 7.4 percent pickup this year, as tightening measures and lower GDP growth would cool the property market, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) said yesterday.
The projection suggests there would be 345,000 to 355,000 transactions next year, as authorities aim to induce a soft landing for home prices, Evertrust general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) said.
Evertrust data showed that housing prices soared 9.4 to 28.6 percent this year in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, despite three waves of credit controls, Yeh said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Price hikes are especially evident this quarter at 28.6 percent in Tainan, 27 percent in Hsinchu and 22.4 percent in Kaohsuing, Yeh said.
The three cities have benefited from technology firms expanding factory capacity to meet business needs, he said.
The central bank’s ban on grace periods for second-home mortgages in the seven areas appear futile in discouraging home purchases, Yeh said.
Instead, inflation and price hike concerns have prompted people to buy homes before it is too late, he said.
An internal survey showed that 81 percent of respondents feel prices have climbed at least 5 percent in the past year, while respondents in Hsinchu said that the price gains surpassed 10 percent, Evertrust research manager Daniel Chen (陳賜傑) said.
The survey showed that 73 percent believe inflation would intensify next year, with 66 percent preferring real estate as a hedge, Chen said.
Seventy-one percent, a 13-year high, expect housing prices to rise in the next three months, while 53 percent advocated joining the market in the first half of next year, he said.
The sense of urgency is from the belief by a big majority that the central bank plans to raise interest rates in the second half of next year, he said, adding that 62 percent expect two hikes of 12.5 basis points each.
Central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) last week said that if all sectors come out of the woods and inflation worsens, interest rates might return to the levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The survey showed that 86 percent of respondents can tolerate an added mortgage burden equivalent to a rate hike of 75 basis points, Chen said.
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