Taiwan’s major property brokers yesterday reported a mild increase in housing deals this month, attributable mainly to the government’s introduction of preferential lending terms for first-home purchases.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), Taiwan’s only listed broker, said the housing market’s performance this month was similar to July and last month, but gained 10 percent by volume compared with last year.
Singyi research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) attributed the year-on-year pickup to a low base last year.
Photo: CNA
“The third quarter proved not bad this time around, supported by real demand,” Tseng said, adding that people responded positively to the government’s introduction of ultra-low interest rates of 1.775 percent for first-home purchases.
The favorable lending terms also include a five-year grace period, a loan cap of NT$10 million (US$309,904) and mortgage periods of up to 30 years, significantly lowering the threshold for home ownership, Tseng said.
Specifically, houses priced from NT$10 million to NT$15 million gained noticeable popularity, accounting for 25 percent of deals, the analyst said.
Apartments valued between NT$30 million and NT$50 million in Taipei were also well received, whereas houses of NT$10 million to NT$20 million were the mainstream in New Taipei City, Tseng said.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), Taiwan’s largest broker by number of offices, said it observed a small increase in housing deals across Taiwan, as people grew accustomed to policy measures the government adopted to cool the market.
The absence of new credit controls made by the central bank on Thursday last week allowed people to breathe a sigh of relief and speed up purchasing plans, Evertrust Rehouse deputy research head Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said.
People with relocation and asset allocation needs also took action after housing prices failed to show corrections for several quarters, Chen said.
H&B Realty Co (住商不動產), the nation’s top broker by number of franchises, said the market displayed better visibility compared with the two previous months and preferential lending terms played an encouraging role.
This was most evident for the two-bedroom apartments in northern and southern Taiwan, H&B Realty research chief Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said, adding that offices with rental prospects also received close attention.
Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said it did not detect cautious sentiment thus far, though the presidential and legislative elections are drawing near.
It is too early to conclude that political uncertainty does not matter at this time, Great Home head researcher Mandy Lang (郎美囡) 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