Housing market in northern Taiwan stays stable in November

Taipei, Dec. 9 (CNA) The housing market in northern Taiwan remained stable in November with an index gauging the market fundamentals continuing to flash a "green light" largely on the back of an increase in transactions, according to a survey by real estate magazine My Housing.

Citing the survey released Thursday, the magazine said the housing composite index remained unchanged from a month earlier at 45.5 points, signaling the stable conditions in the green light category ranging between 42.1 and 52 points in November.

Under the magazine's color-coded system, a red light indicates overheating, yellow-red shows fast growth, green represents stable growth, yellow-blue signals sluggish growth, and blue indicates contraction.

It was the 12th consecutive month that the housing market in northern Taiwan flashed a green light, according to the latest survey.

The index covers major counties and cities in northern Taiwan -- Taipei, New Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Yilan -- which account for more than 50 percent of total residential and commercial property transactions in the country.

Among the six factors in the November index, the subindexes on listings of new residential property projects, home price negotiation rate and total transactions moved higher to 8.35, 8.89 and 8.45, respectively, from 7.99, 8.55 and 7.51 a month earlier.

Bucking the uptrend, the subindex on listings of newly built residential property projects stayed unchanged at 9.48, while the subindexes on the number of newly built homes and the number of visits to properties by potential buyers moved lower from a month earlier to 3.60 and 6.74, respectively, from 4.84 and 7.11.

Cheng Tsai-chi (成采錡), My Housing's research manager, said in a statement that although the upcoming presidential election could create market uncertainty, interest in home buying remained strong.

Cheng said that so long as asking prices were acceptable to potential home buyers for self-dwelling purposes, transaction agreements were struck without much hassle, pushing down the home price negotiation rate to a new low for this year.

While the listings on new home projects increased, the growth was limited and imposed little impact on buying, Cheng said.

The survey found each of the new home projects traced by the magazine as a market indicator recorded 3.3 units in transactions a week on average in November, up 22.22 percent from 2.7 units seen in October.

The new home projects valued at more than NT$1.5 billion (US$47.73 million) each launched in November were scattered in Zhongzheng, Neihu and Xinyi districts of Taipei, Sanchong, Xinzhuang, Tamsui, Xindian and Tucheng districts of New Taipei, Taoyun City and Hukou Township of Hsinchu County, according to the magazine.

However, the looming presidential election has affected buying in luxury residential housing transactions in particular in downtown Taipei, such as Zhongzheng and Songshan districts for this year, the magazine said.