Despite government measures to curb speculation in the pre-sold and newly constructed home markets, transactions of residential and commercial property in Taiwan's six largest cities still moved higher in August with market analysts saying buyers rushed to pick up existing homes.
According to statistics released by the six local governments, transactions of homes, offices and shops in Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan cities in the north, Taichung in central Taiwan, and Tainan and Kaohsiung in the south totalled 20,202 units, up 1.6 percent from a month earlier and also up 5.5 percent from a year earlier.
It was the first-time housing transactions have moved higher on both a month-on-month and year-on-year basis in six months, while August was also the second consecutive month to record a month-on-month increase.
Charlene Chang a section chief at Taiwan Realty Enterprise, said the higher housing sales showed many home buyers went to the second-hand home market in a bid to skirt the latest government measures targeting the pre-sold home market, in particular.
Effective from July 1, amendments to the Equalization of Land Rights Act aim to tamp down speculation in the home market through conditional prohibition of transfers or reselling of purchase orders for pre-sold homes and newly constructed homes.
House flippers in the presale market have long been perceived as the major speculators looking to exploit legal loopholes governing the local property market, pushing up home prices to a level few in the younger generation can afford.
In addition, Chang said Taichung and Tainan saw a spike of home deliveries to buyers from property developers in August, which further boosted the transactions in the six cities as a whole.
In August, housing transactions in Tainan soared 36.9 percent from a month earlier to 2,510 units, and figure also rose sharply by 24.4 percent from a year earlier, helping the city enjoy the highest sales growth among the six municipalities.
In Taichung, housing transactions stood at 4,095 units in August, up 5.5 percent from a month earlier and also up 1.7 percent from a year earlier.
In Taipei, the most closely watched property market in Taiwan, housing sales bucked the upturn, falling 5.9 percent from a month earlier and dropping 4.5 percent from a year earlier to 2,135 units in August.
In New Taipei, the most populous city in Taiwan, housing transactions stood at 4,774 units in August, down 2.4 percent from a month earlier but up 6.8 percent from a year earlier, while in Taoyuan, sales hit 3,632 units, down 5.8 percent from a month earlier but up 4.3 percent from a year earlier.
Kaohsiung, the largest city in southern Taiwan, recorded housing transactions of 3,056 units, down 2.9 percent from a month earlier but up 4.5 percent from a year earlier.
In the first eight months of this year, Taiwan's housing sales hit 147,082 units, down about 13 percent from a year earlier.
Tseng Ching-der,a research manager with Sinyi Realty Inc., said judging from recent transaction data, the local home market shows signs of bottoming out as buyers for self-dwelling purposes jump into the market.
Housing transactions around Taiwan are expected to top 285,000 units in 2023, compared with 318,101 units recorded in 2022, Tseng said.
