Taiwan expected to climb in real estate transparency rankings
Taipei, October 16 (CNA) Taiwan’s real estate transparency ranking is expected to rise with the launch of a database that lists the actual value of property transactions in the country, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said Tuesday.
Yu Shih-ming, a section chief at the MOI’s Department of Land Administration, said Taiwan was ranked 29th this year among 82 economies on the Global Real Estate Transparency Index, up from 33rd in 2010.
Yu said the improvement in ranking was partly a result of the Taiwan government’s plan to publish actual transaction prices and it can be expected to climb higher now that the database is in operation.
The biennial transparency index is published by Jones Lang LaSalle, a multinational financial services company that specialises in real estate.
Taiwan’s online database, which was launched early Tuesday, works on a two-month lag, with data published on the site two months after the property transaction, on the 16th of each month. Over 16,000 properties bought and sold in August, for example, were listed in the database on October 16.
Government regulations stipulate that from August, land administration agents, real estate brokers or property owners should report the price of transactions to the MOI within 30 days after the sale has been registered at a local land office. Violators are subject to a fine of between NT$30,000 (US$1,025.5) and NT$150,000.
There have been a total of 21 violations so far, with a fine of NT$30,000 imposed in each case, Yu said.
The MOI said it is currently increasing the bandwidth for the database website after many users reported Tuesday that the site was not loading.
Nearly 3,000 hits were recorded in less than five minutes after the launch, which overloaded the website, the MOI said.
Meanwhile, Kaohsiung City’s Land Administration Bureau said 3,429 transactions were completed in August this year, compared with 3,370 cases in the same month last year.
The bureau said the figures showed that the government policy, which became effective in August, has not had an obvious impact on the city’s property market.
Also on Tuesday, real estate agents said that the actual transaction prices published on the site indicated that owners of upscale property in Taipei tended to set their asking price much higher than the actual value.
It also showed a smaller discrepancy in the asking price and actual transaction value for upscale houses in central and southern Taiwan, the agents said.
In New Taipei, real estate agents said the most expensive properties were in the Banciao area of the city, fetching an average NT$600,000 to NT$700,000 per ping
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Category: Taiwan
