Property transactions last month plunged 47.5 percent year-on-year to 12,613 units in the nation’s six special municipalities, as an ongoing economic slowdown and the Lunar New Year holiday drove buyers to the sidelines, real-estate brokers said on Wednesday.
The volume was a 39.2 percent retreat from a month earlier, suggesting weak sentiment at the start of this year, said Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), the nation’s largest broker by number of offices.
“Property transfers in January slumped to the lowest level in nearly four years, dragged by economic uncertainty and unfavorable policies,” Evertrust Rehouse deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said, citing the ban on the resale of presale contracts, interest rate hikes, and a softening economic outlook at home and abroad.
Specifically, deals in New Taipei City and Kaohsiung plummeted 58.2 percent and 48.7 percent respectively, their worst showings in 13 years, Chen said, adding that the pace of decline exceeded 40 percent in Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung and Tainan.
The nation’s economy last quarter contracted 0.86 percent, reversing three previous quarters of growth, as exporters struggled with capacity and inventory adjustments that appear worse and longer than expected, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data showed.
Major technology companies have provided conservative guidance for business this quarter and beyond, and have cut or postponed capital spending to cope with poor order visibility.
That scenario means the government and consumers have to assume the role of growth drivers.
The statistics agency is to update its GDP forecast later this month.
In addition, four interest rate hikes last year pushed mortgage burdens in December to a seven-year high and rates are likely to climb further as inflationary pressures remain higher than the central bank’s 2 percent target, Chen said.
Housing and construction loans in December advanced at the softest pace in three years to NT$9.38 trillion (US$315.6 billion) and NT$3.98 trillion respectively, suggesting tightening measures had achieved their intended effect, the central bank said.
The monetary policymaker has sought to induce a soft landing for house prices and urged caution in financial leveraging on concerns economic downside risks would intensify this year.
The timing of the Lunar New Year holiday also contributed to the property market’s poor performance, Evertrust Rehouse said.
The 10-day holiday fell entirely in January this year, while partly falling in February last year, and cut working days by 25 percent from a year earlier, Chen said.
People assigned more importance to grocery shopping, house cleaning and family reunions over the holiday, but might resume house hunting this month, Chen added.
Apple Inc has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence (AI) features to its devices, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have been finalizing terms for a pact to use ChatGPT features in Apple’s iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. Apple also has held talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. Those discussions have not led to an agreement, but are ongoing. An OpenAI
INSATIABLE: Almost all AI innovators are working with the chipmaker to address the rapidly growing AI-related demand for energy-efficient computing power, the CEO said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported about 60 percent annual growth in revenue for last month, benefiting from rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications. Revenue last month expanded to NT$236.02 billion (US$7.28 billion), compared with NT$147.9 billion in April last year, the second-highest level in company history, TSMC said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue surged 20.9 percent, from NT$195.21 billion in March. As AI-related applications continue to show strong growth, TSMC expects revenue to expand about 27.6 percent year-on-year during the current quarter to between US$19.6 billion and US$20.4 billion. That would
‘FULL SUPPORT’: Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said he hopes more companies would settle in the prefecture to create an area similar to Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park The newly elected governor of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture said he is ready to ensure wide-ranging support to woo Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to build its third Japanese chip factory there. Concerns of groundwater shortages when TSMC’s two plants begin operations in the prefecture’s Kikuyo have spurred discussions about the possibility of tapping unused dam water, Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said in an interview on Saturday. While Kimura said talks about a third plant have yet to occur, Bloomberg had reported TSMC is already considering its third Japanese fab — also in Kumamoto — which would make more advanced chips. “We are
KEY TECHNOLOGY: South Korea’s semiconductor exports reached US$11.7 billion in March, and the chip sector accounts for one-fifth of the nation’s total exports South Korea would set up an aid package worth more than US$7 billion to support its chip industry, the South Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance said yesterday. This initiative follows its pledge last year to build the world’s largest chip center using US$240 billion of private investment, primarily from Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s largest memorychip maker, as it seeks an edge in the global industry. Seoul “is preparing an assistance package of more than 10 trillion won (US$7.3 billion) to support fabless, chips materials and manufacturing equipment in all areas of chips industry,” South Korean Minister of Economy and Finance