The presale and new housing market last quarter held steady from three months earlier by measure of projects for sale, showing a fractional 0.9 percent growth to NT$328 billion (US$11.13 billion), a Cathay Real Estate Development Co (國泰建設) survey showed on Wednesday.
Sales rates slowed somewhat, but selling prices rose nationwide as developers and builders passed rising construction costs on to buyers.
This segment of the property market continued to perform well, judging by housing prices, the survey showed.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Developers and builders launched 231 projects offering 20,559 units that could generate NT$328 billion in sales, representing a 13.5 percent increase compared with a year earlier, it said.
The increase in revenue came even though the number of projects and units declined 6.1 percent and 2 percent from their respective levels three months earlier, it said.
That meant the supply side refrained from active project launches, but raised prices to reflect spikes in labor and building material costs, it said.
Some developers pushed back their release schedules after government agencies introduced a spate of unfavorable measures to cool the market, it said.
The Ministry of the Interior is sponsoring a bill to impose stiff fines on dishonest marketing practices, and the central bank is suggesting further credit controls after hiking interest rates by 0.25 percentage points in March.
Potential transaction prices gained 13.66 percent to NT$432,500 per ping (3.3m2) nationwide, while leeway for price concessions was virtually flat at 7.71 percent, it said.
The 30-day sales rate was relatively stable at 15.2 percent, down 1.86 percentage points from the previously quarter, it said.
Price increases are most evident in Hsinchu County at 19.2 percent, followed by Taoyuan at 18.45 percent, and Kaohsiung at 16.37 percent, it said.
Prices for presale housing projects in Taichung and Tainan both rose 11 percent, while advancing 8.6 percent in Taipei and 8.52 percent in New Taipei City.
Average selling prices in Taipei reached NT$1.06 million per ping, a mark previously limited to popular locations, it said, adding that uncertainty is gathering pace this quarter due to heightening economic downside risks.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS