Housing transactions in the first six months of this year soared 27 percent from a year earlier to 177,000 units, two separate surveys showed, despite steep price increases in some major urban centers.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), Taiwan’s only listed broker, yesterday said that there was an increase in transactions for new and existing houses as buyer interest spiked.
More increases are expected, Sinyi Realty said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
The upbeat sentiment came even though home prices rose 4.8 to 17 percent in the six special municipalities — Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung — as well as Hsinchu city and county, Sinyi research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾進德) said.
Prices in the Hsinchu area increased the most nationwide with a 17.1 percent jump in the first half, followed by Taoyuan (15.6 percent), Taichung (14.9 percent) and Kaohsiung (13.1 percent), the company said.
Sinyi Realty linked the surge in buying interest to an economic recovery and TAIEX rallies.
Taiwan’s exports expanded more than 10 percent in the first half and would gain pace in the high sales season for technology products, Tseng said.
At the same time, local stocks have repeatedly set new highs amid a global craze for artificial intelligence applications, he said.
Sinyi Realty expects challenges to arise, as the central bank last month raised the lenders’ reserve requirement ratio by 12.5 basis points and lowered the loan-to-value limit from 70 percent to 60 percent for second-home mortgages in the six special municipalities and Hsinchu.
Furthermore, the government and state-run banks have tightened reviews for first-home loan applications to root out dummy buyers and potential landlords, the realtor said.
Interest subsidies and other favorable lending terms are intended to help people buy first homes to meet self-occupancy needs, the Ministry of Finance has said, adding it would take action against those who contravene the rules.
A separate survey last week by Cathay Real Estate Development Co (國泰建設) showed that presale and new house projects in the April-to-June quarter more than doubled to NT$557.5 billion (US$16.97 billion) from three months earlier.
Selling prices averaged NT$530,300 per ping (3.3m2) nationwide, an increase of 6.7 percent from a quarter earlier, Cathay Real Estate Development said, adding that the 30-day sales rate climbed 5.22 percentage points to 22.12 percent.
Taiwan’s rapid economic growth lent support to the upturn in the presale and new housing market by measure of project volume, sales rates and selling prices, it said.
The gauge on price concessions widened 0.31 percentage points to 6.38 percent, still within a healthy range, it said.
Cathay Real Estate Development said that it is optimistic the improvement would continue, but warned that the central bank might introduce more credit controls to rein in the market.
LIMITED IMPACT: Investor confidence was likely sustained by its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as only less advanced chips are made in Nanjing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) saw its stock price close steady yesterday in a sign that the loss of the validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing, China, fab should have a mild impact on the world’s biggest contract chipmaker financially and technologically. Media reports about the waiver loss sent TSMC down 1.29 percent during the early trading session yesterday, but the stock soon regained strength and ended at NT$1,160, unchanged from Tuesday. Investors’ confidence in TSMC was likely built on its relatively small exposure to the Chinese market, as Chinese customers contributed about 9 percent to TSMC’s revenue last
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
Germany is to establish its first-ever national pavilion at Semicon Taiwan, which starts tomorrow in Taipei, as the country looks to raise its profile and deepen semiconductor ties with Taiwan as global chip demand accelerates. Martin Mayer, a semiconductor investment expert at Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), Germany’s international economic promotion agency, said before leaving for Taiwan that the nation is a crucial partner in developing Germany’s semiconductor ecosystem. Germany’s debut at the international semiconductor exhibition in Taipei aims to “show presence” and signal its commitment to semiconductors, while building trust with Taiwanese companies, government and industry associations, he said. “The best outcome
RSS