Commercial property transactions last quarter spiked 51.5 percent year-on-year to NT$21.2 billion (US$662.94 million), driven by strong demand for office buildings from different sectors, property broker Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan said yesterday.
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Co (台達電) bought two office buildings in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) from Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) for NT$4.79 billion to meet self-occupancy needs, making it the largest deal in the quarter, the broker said.
Goldsun Building Materials Co (國產建材) sold a commercial complex in Tainan for NT$1.64 billion, the second-largest transaction, followed by the acquisition by Taishin Life Insurance Co (台新人壽) of an office building in Tainan for NT$1.45 billion, it said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Strong office demand and ample liquidity accounted for the impressive showing in the commercial property market, Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan said, adding that self-occupancy demand would continue to drive the market this quarter and beyond.
Land deals totaled NT$63.7 billion during the first quarter, above NT$60 billion for the first time since 2022, suggesting the market is emerging from selective credit controls and other unfavorable policy measures, the broker said.
It was a stark contrast to the average of NT$30 billion a quarter last year, it said.
As for residential property, Cushman & Wakefield Taiwan managing director Billy Yen (顏炳立) said the government’s interest subsidy for first-home purchases and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) capacity expansion have lent support to the segment.
Presale projects have proved popular in locations near TSMC’s new plants nationwide, as the plants create well-paid jobs for people with real housing demand, Yen said.
Separately, property transactions in the nation's six special municipalities climbed to 23,409 units last month, rising by 12.2 percent from a year earlier, as the government's interest subsidy spurred sentiment among first-home buyers and people’s attitude toward real-estate market turned more positive, data compiled by local land administration agencies showed yesterday.
Among the six special municipalities, transactions in Taipei jumped the most by 34.9 percent to 3,042 units and Tainan surged 32.7 percent to 2,894 units, while Taoyuan rose 16.9 percent to 3,970 units and Kaohsiung increased 11.5 percent to 3,839 units. New Taipei City saw transaction grow 2.4 percent to 5,671 units but Taichung witinessed a decline of 1.3 percent to 3,993 units, data showed.
Overall, total transactions in the six cities during the first quarter increased 28.3 percent from a year earlier to 63,226 units, data showed.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of