Taiwan’s housing market might stage a mild recovery of 2.5 percent next year, as the economy is coming out of the woods and buying interest is picking up, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) said yesterday.
The prediction suggests property deals next year would total 304,000 units to 313,000 units, from an expected decline of 3 to 5 percent this year, Evertrust general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) said.
“The market next year would see a modest growth in transactions and house prices would climb higher,” Yeh told a quarterly news conference.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The money tightening cycle at home and abroad is approaching an end, allowing the market to breathe a sigh of relief, he said.
The much anticipated price corrections have not been realized thus far, despite a spate of unfavorable policy measures Yeh said, adding that house prices gained 4.1 to 14.7 percent in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
Furthemorer, deals of pre-sale projects soared by double-digit percentage points in most special municipalities in the first 10 months of this year after the government spared existing projects from a ban on purchase agreement transfers, Yeh said.
Evertrust’s quarterly survey lent support to the sanguine views, Evertrust research manager Daniel Chen (陳賜傑) said.
A total of 40 percent of respondents are looking at house price hikes in the coming three months, while people with negative views shed 8 percentage points to 23 percent, Chen said.
“After two quarters of standoff, people with optimistic views apparently gained the upper hand, judging by the survey,” Chen said.
Fifty-eight percent believe it is wise to buy houses next year and 44 percent think it is right to sell, he said.
The government’s introduction on Aug. 1 of favorable lending terms for first-home purchases helped sustain the market in the second half of this year and beyond, Chen said.
A majority --- 51 percent --- voiced plans to speed up home purchases next year with the ratio above 55 percent in New Taipei City, Taichung and Tainan, where house prices are relatively affordable, he said.
As for house prices, 71 percent said they rose more than 5 percent in the past 12 months, with the uptrend most evident in Hsinchu City, Taichung, and Tainan, Chen said.
Developers and builders refused to make price concessions, citing sharp labor and building material cost hikes.
Yeh said the volume of unsold houses looks healthy as the supply side has generally adopted a cautious approach in recent years. The price increase would sustain next year on the back of wage hikes and an economic recovery, he said.
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