Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), Taiwan’s largest property broker by number of offices, expects up to a 23 percent annual decline in housing transactions in the first half of this year, as its first-quarter results are worse than expected so far, high-ranking officials said yesterday.
While buying interest has picked up slightly from a quarter earlier, most buyers are hesitant to close deals due to expectations that prices will decline amid financial and economic woes, Evertrust general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) told a news conference in Taipei.
Property deals for this year are likely to total 132,000 to 140,000 units by June — a retreat of 18 to 23 percent from the same period last year, Yeh said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The conservative forecast came after transactions nationwide in the first two months of the year slumped 28.8 percent annually to 37,048 units, he said, adding that the retreat grew to 29.4 percent in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
“An economic slowdown at home and abroad fueled expectations of price concessions, but sellers generally refused to concede, thereby slowing transactions,” Yeh said, adding that recent bank collapses in the US and Europe have encouraged caution and patience.
However, inflation and continued monetary tightening have given sellers reason to hold firm, Evertrust’s quarterly survey showed.
The poll found that 40 percent of respondents were expecting price declines, down 6 percentage points from three months earlier, while 31 percent had a neutral view.
That is because things become more expensive in times of inflation and interest rate hikes, Evertrust research manager Daniel Chen (陳賜傑) said.
About 64 percent of respondents expected the central bank to raise interest rates this year to curb inflation and account for the difference in interest rates between Taiwan and the US, Chen said.
A rapid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic among retailers and restaurants has bolstered the occupancy rates of storefronts and dining spaces, he said.
Of the survey’s respondents, 64 percent expected vacancy rates to drop, while 74 percent expressed an interest in resuming social gatherings and eating out, Chen said.
He said 86 percent supported the government’s ban on the transfer of presale house purchase agreements, saying that the practice would help limit property speculation.
Fifty percent of people said the ban would not affect their plans to buy presale housing, he said.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
RSS