Housing transactions in the six special municipalities fell 11.2 percent sequentially last month to 22,439 units, as buyers turned more cautious amid higher interest rates and unfavorable government policies, real-estate brokers said on Monday.
The figure represented a 0.9 percent increase compared with the same period last year, based on data compiled by the six local governments.
Taipei, Taoyuan, Tainan and Kaohsiung all reported double-percentage declines to 2,747, 3,687, 1,933 and 3,389 units respectively last month, when the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday cut working days by three, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said in a press release.
Photo: CNA
An interest rate hike of 0.25 percentage points in March and the Executive Yuan’s approval of a proposal to heavily fine “dishonest marketing practices” affected sentiment, Tseng said.
The central bank on March 17 raised interest rates by 25 basis points and is widely believed to be planning further tightening measures like its peers around the world to combat inflation.
Consumer prices have climbed above the 2 percent alert level for seven straight months and might not come down until the second half of the year, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics has said.
Property transfers in New Taipei City were relatively resilient, posting a 5 percent decline to 6,113 units, Tseng said, adding that Taichung posted an 8 percent fall to 4,570 units.
Tseng voiced concern that the market would worsen this month, as people avoid going out after daily COVID-19 cases hit more than 20,000 yesterday.
A recovery is unlikely until the infection numbers stabilize, he said.
Health authorities have forecast that millions of Taiwanese would be infected before the outbreak can be brought under control, likely in the middle of next month.
In the first four months of the year, housing transactions in the six special municipalities hit a nine-year high of 87,360 units, up 3.2 percent from a year earlier, data showed.
That was led by increases of 5.3 percent in New Taipei City, 4.9 percent in Taichung, 4.6 percent in Tainan and 2.8 percent in Kaohsiung, the data showed.
Taipei reported a minimal increase of 0.4 percent but Taoyuan saw a 0.3 percent decrease, the data showed.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS