ENCOURAGING MOMENTUM: A property analyst said that the trend could suggest a recovery in developers’ confidence, which extends to the superficies rights market

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 07, 2018
By: Crystal Hsu  /  Staff reporter

Commercial property sales remained weak last quarter, but land deals gained traction as builders and developers built up stocks of land, encouraged by a pickup in housing transactions, analysts said.

Land deals totaled NT$40.3 billion (US$1.38 billion) from January to last month, a 39 percent improvement from a year earlier, while commercial property transactions declined 34 percent to NT$8.8 billion over the period, global real-estate consultancy REPro Knight Frank (瑞普萊坊) said.

The figure for land deals with superficies rights marked the highest since 2010 as local builders and developers sought to make their presence felt in rezoning districts nationwide, said REPro Knight Frank researcher Andy Huang (黃舒衛), who is based in Taipei.

Residential and commercial land deals surged almost 80 percent to NT$32.2 billion last quarter, while industrial lot deals, the main driver over the past few quarters, took a 3 percent downturn to NT$7.3 billion, the consultancy’s quarterly report showed.
[FULL  STORY]