House prices could climb higher next quarter on improved buying interest induced by the government’s continued interest subsidy for first-home purchases, a survey by Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) showed yesterday.
Fifty-two percent of respondents expect house prices to pick up during the second quarter of the year, a finding that is 12 percentage points higher than three months earlier, the largest real-estate broker by number of offices told a news conference in Taipei.
The uptrend would come on top of an average 46.1 percent hike since the first quarter of 2020 when Evertrust teamed up with National Chengchi University to track real house price changes, Evertrust general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Yesterday marked the first time the university and Evertrust released their real house price index, which panel members said better captures housing market price movements than the government’s real price transaction platform.
Only 15 percent of respondents are expecting price corrections, as Taiwan is coming out of an economic slowdown, giving people less grounds for being pessimistic, Evertrust research manager Daniel Chen (陳賜傑) said.
Transaction data so far lent support to the positive views.
Housing transactions could total 81,000 to 85,000 units this quarter, suggesting a spike of up to 32 percent year-on-year, Chen said, adding that the government’s interest subsidy for first-home purchases has played a role in facilitating deals.
Exactly 50 percent of respondents said it is wise to buy a house this year, while 46 percent think it is time to sell, with house prices unlikely to boom or bust, Evertrust said.
House prices have soared more than 50 percent in major cities except Taipei, limiting the room for further growth, it said, adding that credit controls would also rein in prices.
However, rising land and building material prices mean that developers would likely not make price concessions, Evertrust said.
In the first half of this year, there could be 169,000 to 174,000 transactions, an increase of 22 to 25 percent, it said.
The property market would receive support from the favorable wealth effect linked to the TAIEX remaining above 20,000 points, while seeking to digest the central bank’s unexpected interest rate hike of 0.125 percentage points, it said.
The rate hike would not affect first-home purchases as the Ministry of Finance has expressed a willingness to absorb the extra borrowing costs, it added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
RSS