Taipei Luxury Homes Heat Up Against the Trend, With 327 Deals in the First Three Quarters

Against a backdrop of generally subdued buying in the housing market, Taipei's market for high-priced homes has shown a different trend. Statistics from HBHousing show that in the first three quarters of this year, there were 327 deals in Taipei for homes with a total price of NT$70 million or more, up 18.5% year on year. The most notable were Datong and Beitou districts: Datong District soared from 5 deals in the same period last year to 14, and Beitou District also jumped from 6 to 16, with the increases in both districts exceeding 1.6 times.

Changes in deals by district show a divergence. Daan District, the traditional luxury home cluster, remains the market's lead player, with 83 deals and an average of NT$1.578 million per ping, up 27.7% year on year; Zhongzheng District had 51 deals, up 21.4%; Xinyi District had 32, up 23.1%; and Songshan District, with 30 deals, did not have a large volume, but its average unit price of NT$1.725 million was the highest in the city, up 36.4%. By comparison, the average in Beitou District was NT$1.062 million per ping, and in Datong District it was NT$1.236 million.

Lai Zhichang, assistant manager of public relations at the Great Home Realty Planning and Research Office, analyzed that Datong and Beitou have attracted home upgraders because of newly developed rezoning areas coming onto the market one after another and urban renewal projects being handed over. He noted that high-asset households have strong risk resilience and, unlike ordinary home buyers, are not affected by tightening bank lending, and that the wealth effect created by stock market gains, together with considerations of diversified asset allocation, supports their continued entry into the market. Traditional "egg yolk" districts remain competitive because of school districts, transportation and scarcity, and are even more favored when the housing market is sluggish.