Property transactions in the six special municipalities last quarter plunged 24.1 percent from a year earlier to 49,290 units, dragged by weak sentiment, although buying interest last month showed a noticeable improvement.
It was the lowest volume since 2018 as a series of interest rate hikes and unfavorable policy measures cast a shadow on the market.
“The ban on transfers of presale house purchase agreements and monetary tightening sidelined prospective buyers looking for bargains,” Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) head researcher Mandy Lang (郎美囡) said on Thursday.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
PRICING INFLEXIBILITY
However, expectations that prices would fall have yet to materialize, as sellers held firm, buoyed by a government pledge that the upcoming ban would not affect existing deals.
Weighed by economic uncertainty and pricing concerns, transaction during the January-to-March period fell 28 percent to 5,677 units in Taipei, slumped 25 percent to 12,521 units in New Taipei City and dropped 27.8 percent to 8,190 units in Taoyuan, government data showed.
Deals declined 23 percent to 9,870 units in Taichung, decreased 19 percent to 4,932 units in Tainan and fell 22 percent to 8,025 units in Kaohsiung.
Sellers would rather hold onto their properties than accept what they deem as unreasonable or humiliating offers, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) research head Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said.
Pricing inflexibility accounted in part for the absence of panic selling — unlike in 2016 before the introduction of combined property taxes that drove investors to cut prices and exit the market, Hsu said.
MARCH PICKUP
The gloomy sentiment eased somewhat last month, with transactions in the six special municipalities standing at 20,860 units, down 17.4 percent year-on-year, but up 31.9 percent from February, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said.
Pent-up real demand underpinned the pickup after price corrections failed to materialize, Sinyi research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾進德) said.
More working days and the completion of new residential projects also lent support to last month’s data, Tseng said.
Developers wrapped up construction of presale housing complexes in Taoyuan’s Gueishan District (龜山) and Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) said.
Transactions are likely to stay soft in line with an economic slowdown, but the room for price corrections is limited given higher building material costs, the broker said.
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