Land deals last year soared more than twofold to NT$277.6 billion (US$8.45 billion), as developers actively built up land stock, but it would turn conservative this year amid the central bank’s lingering bid to cool real-estate lending, CBRE Ltd Taiwan (世邦魏理仕台灣) said yesterday.
The value suggested a 116 percent increase from a year earlier, as developers and builders raised land stock, encouraged by the housing fever in the first half of last year, CBRE said.
The uptrend was most pronounced in Taichung, where land deals amounted to NT$58.3 billion, or 21 percent of the total, it said.
Photo: CNA
Taichung-based Full Wang International Development Co (富旺國際開發) last month acquired a 945.31 ping (3,125m2) land plot for NT$1.24 billion, which it aims to turn into apartment complexes targeting first-home buyers, the company’s regulatory filing said.
The plot is near the city’s Shuinan Gateway Park (水湳經貿園區) and the government has completed construction on related public works, Full Wang said.
Meanwhile, commercial properties fared weaker, shrinking 7 percent to NT$125.1 billion last year due partly to a high base the previous year, CBRE said.
Industrial factories underpinned the segment, as tech firms bought idle factories to expand their capacity, CBRE real-estate appraisal head Winston Shih (施甫學) said.
Move-in ready factories in science parks are in demand, accounting for NT$66.1 billion of transactions last year, nearly a three-fold increase to a new high, Shih said.
That included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) buying an idle plant in Tainan from flat-panel display maker Innolux Corp (群創) for NT$17.14 billion; Micron Technology Taiwan Inc (台灣美光) acquiring an industrial property in Tainan from flat-panel supplier AUO Corp (友達) for NT$7.4 billion; and ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) obtaining two industrial complexes in Kaohsiung for NT$5.26 billion, CBRE data showed.
“The top 10 commercial property transactions are all related to industrial properties, an unprecedented phenomenon,” Shih said.
Developers would turn low-key this year to avoid riling up the central bank, which is to step up inspections of mortgage operations and land financing to slow real-estate lending, CBRE said.
However, industrial land prices would receive further support from the expansion needs of local tech firms, it said, adding that industrial land prices in central and southern Taiwan have advanced 6.5 percent to 10 percent over the past three years.
Local life insurers could display more activism this year if insurance regulators ease yield requirements, CBRE said.
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