Presale and new housing prices last quarter climbed 6.01 percent to NT$458,600 (US$15,323) per ping (3.3m2), although transactions slumped 29.71 percent as COVID-19 infections and interest rate hikes fueled caution on the part of developers and buyers, a survey by Cathay Real Estate Development Co (國泰建設) showed on Wednesday.
Developers and builders released 187 projects offering 16,473 new housing units that could generate NT$290.8 billion in sales, a 23.9 percent fall from the first quarter, on the central bank’s liquidity tightening policy and expectations that buying interest would weaken amid spiking COVID-19 infections, Cathay said.
However, asking prices rose in the municipalities of Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, and in Hsinchu county and city, with New Taipei City seeing a fractional 0.11 percent decline to NT$496,700 per ping, it said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Taoyuan reported the steepest price advance of 16.35 percent to NT$385,000 per ping as soaring building material prices and relative affordability provided developers with enough comfort to adopt a bold pricing strategy, Cathay said.
New housing prices gained 11.17 percent to NT$409,500 per ping in Hsinchu County and increased 8.98 percent to NT$422,200 per ping in Taichung, it said.
Prices grew 5.39 percent to NT$284,600 per ping in Tainan and scaled up 5.28 percent to NT$305,100 in Kaohsiung, it added.
The gauge on price concessions widened mildly by 1.21 percentage points to 8.93 percent, indicating the supply side generally refused to budge despite heightening economic headwinds, Cathay said.
The property market is likely to enter a consolidation phase, with room for price gains squeezed by inflation, interest rate hikes, unfavorable lending terms and ongoing COVID-19 infections, it said.
November’s elections of local administrators could also drive buyers to the sidelines amid political uncertainty, considering that candidates tend to pledge measures to mitigate housing unaffordability while campaigning, it said.
Separately, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) on Tuesday reported that net income fell 36.11 percent year-on-year to NT$313 million last quarter, as a COVID-19 outbreak and interest rate hikes dampened buying interest.
Earnings per share were NT$0.43 last quarter, compared with NT$0.67 a year earlier, when a level 3 COVID-19 alert kept people at home, Sinyi said, adding that for the first half of this year, net income decreased 16.77 percent year-on-year to NT$791 million, or earnings per share of NT$1.07.
Significant housing price gains across Taiwan and the central bank’s monetary tightening have made people more cautious this year, Sinyi said, adding that the central bank has asked people to be careful about financial leveraging.
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