Taiwanese hold a neutral view of the property market next quarter, as cautious sentiment lingers amid economic uncertainty, but housing prices have found support in inflation, an Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) survey released yesterday showed.
Almost 60 percent of respondents thought it would be unwise to join the market in the next six months, while nearly 40 percent said it would be better to wait until 2025, suggesting an extended slowdown in transactions, Evertrust research manager Daniel Chen (陳賜傑) said, citing the company’s quarterly survey.
Thirty-four percent said house prices would increase, while 31 percent expected price corrections, with high inflation believed to become a new norm, Chen said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Respondents were conservative even though 79 percent said that the recent introduction of favorable lending terms for first-home buyers was helpful in bolstering people’s interest in buying property, he said.
“People by-and-large need more time to digest economic signals at home and abroad,” Chen said, referring to poor exports, capital flight, monetary tightening in advanced economies and international oil price increases.
Evertrust general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) said that while it is difficult to make projections at this point, things could grow more fluid next quarter before Taiwan elects a new president and lawmakers in January.
“Political uncertainty always warrants caution,” Yeh said, adding that Evertrust Rehouse, Taiwan’s largest broker by number of offices, stood by its earlier forecast that housing deals this year would shrink 8 to 11 percent to 283,000 to 293,000 units, despite a better-than-expected third quarter.
A low base accounts for the improvement in comparison values this quarter, Yeh added.
House prices grew a moderate 2 to 4.9 percent in major cities this quarter, as the mentality that real estate is the best defense against inflation supported prices, he said.
Expectations of price declines have not been realized and some buyers decided not to stay on the sidelines any longer, Yeh added.
Of the survey’s respondents, 83 percent said they supported the government’s plan to raise house taxes for people who own multiple homes next year, but they were concerned that it would prompt landlords to pass their extra tax burden on to their tenants.
Small and open, Taiwan’s economy is vulnerable to external influences, and the US’ dim economic outlook for next year would inevitably weigh on Taiwan’s exports, the nation’s main growth driver, Yeh said.
That explains why the public is generally not confident that the nation’s economy will recover next quarter, he said.
ASML Holding NV’s new advanced chip machines have a daunting price tag, said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), one of the Dutch company’s biggest clients. “The cost is very high,” TSMC senior vice president Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, referring to ASML’s latest system known as high-NA extreme ultraviolet (EUV). “I like the high-NA EUV’s capability, but I don’t like the sticker price,” Zhang said. ASML’s new chip machine can imprint semiconductors with lines that are just 8 nanometers thick — 1.7 times smaller than the previous generation. The machines cost 350 million euros (US$378 million)
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