Commercial property transactions last quarter totaled NT$34.6 billion (US$1.09 billion), up 24.9 percent from three months earlier on the back of solid demand for factories and factory offices, the local branch of international property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield said yesterday.
The volume reversed two previous quarters of decline, boosted by Taiwan Life Insurance Co’s (台灣人壽) purchase of an industrial building in Taoyuan’s Cingpu District (青埔) for NT$6.3 billion, Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan said.
The market is poised to slow or correct itself, as interest rate hikes would add hurdles to the investment plans of life insurers and other institutional players, which accounted for 65 percent of transactions in the first three quarters of this year, it said, adding that economic uncertainty also warrants caution.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Interest rate hikes mean that life insurers have to look for investment targets that generate higher rental incomes to meet regulatory requirements on minimum yields. The options would narrow in light of property price increases.
“There won’t be a revenge rebound to celebrate the upcoming border reopening ... rather, inflation, monetary tightening and other risks would continue to weigh on confidence,” Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan managing director Billy Yen (顏炳立) said, referring to an easing of COVID-19 rules for people arriving in Taiwan from Thursday next week.
The bull market is over, although the sell side is refusing to concede and is generally standing firm on prices, Yen said.
Confusion and chaos would dominate the market this quarter and price corrections would appear inevitable next year if things fail to improve, he said.
Land deals last quarter totaled NT$52.1 billion and would drop to between NT$160 billion and NT$180 billion for the whole of this year, lower than the 10-year average of NT$197.3 billion, ending three years of boom, the consultancy said.
Property developers have turned conservative about building land stock, shifting focus to urban renewal projects and joint ventures with land owners to cut development costs, it said.
The strategy makes sense, as it falls in line with the government’s policy to enhance building safety and would rein in business risks when building material costs rise and sales rates stall, it said.
Yen said he does not expect major land deals soon, but owners remain upbeat about land prices, which would translate into a 10 percent increase in presale house projects this quarter.
Price corrections would start in second-tier locations where property developers have overpriced projects, Yen said.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received about NT$147 billion (US$4.71 billion) in subsidies from the US, Japanese, German and Chinese governments over the past two years for its global expansion. Financial data compiled by the world’s largest contract chipmaker showed the company secured NT$4.77 billion in subsidies from the governments in the third quarter, bringing the total for the first three quarters of the year to about NT$71.9 billion. Along with the NT$75.16 billion in financial aid TSMC received last year, the chipmaker obtained NT$147 billion in subsidies in almost two years, the data showed. The subsidies received by its subsidiaries —
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
The number of Taiwanese working in the US rose to a record high of 137,000 last year, driven largely by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) rapid overseas expansion, according to government data released yesterday. A total of 666,000 Taiwanese nationals were employed abroad last year, an increase of 45,000 from 2023 and the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. Overseas employment had steadily increased between 2009 and 2019, peaking at 739,000, before plunging to 319,000 in 2021 amid US-China trade tensions, global supply chain shifts, reshoring by Taiwanese companies and
RSS