Ghost Month home-buying fever in New Taipei City and Songshan, Taipei

(Taiwan Business News) Real estate agents compiled statistics on the difference between transaction volume during Ghost Month of the lunar calendar and the monthly average for the whole year. The results show that the gap in New Taipei City and Taichung City has gradually narrowed, and even turned positive across the board last year; Taipei City, however, plunged sharply last year to negative 16.9%, with only Songshan District turning positive.

According to statistics from the Research and Development Center of Yungching Realty Group, comparing the difference in transaction volume during the seventh lunar month from 2010 to 2013 against the monthly average for the whole year, New Taipei City went from a contraction of 18.3% versus the annual monthly average in 2010, with the gap narrowing year by year and the figure turning from negative to positive, reaching a 3.9% increase over the annual monthly average in 2013, followed by Taichung City with a slight increase of 0.1% in 2013.

In contrast, after Taipei City turned positive during Ghost Month in 2012, the gap reversed and widened to negative 16.9% in 2013, ranking last among the four cities of Taipei, New Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. Looking further, among the 12 administrative districts of Taipei City in 2013, the difference between transaction volume during the seventh lunar month and the annual monthly average was most impressive in Songshan District alone, where Ghost Month transaction volume increased rather than decreased compared with the annual monthly average, rising 4%.

Huang Shu-wei, manager of the Research and Development Center of Yungching Realty Group, pointed out that Songshan District during Ghost Month in 2013 happened to benefit from the continued progress of the MRT Songshan Line construction, the surface rights tender for the Taipei Xueyuan site on Dunhua North Road, the change of MOMO Department Store to Breeze operation, and the entry of Eslite into the Songshan Tobacco Factory, combining tourism, cultural and creative industries, exhibitions, a movie theater and other facilities into a cultural and creative space with total operating floor area of 7,200 ping, among other regional boosts. The entire area was filled with commercial vitality, and the housing market bucked the trend and held firm.

Huang Shu-wei said that Songshan District is maturely developed with strong commercial and living functions, and with the MRT Songshan Line about to be completed by the end of 2014, the market has great potential for development. Buyers are mostly from the high-asset class, and when they make a move they mostly value the regional development prospects of the product, having fewer taboos about Ghost Month. Instead, because there is more room for price negotiation when buying homes during Ghost Month, they are bold about entering the market.

Ghost Month was traditionally regarded as a taboo month for buying homes, when nothing should be done, and was listed alongside the lunar New Year as one of the two major off-seasons for the housing market. However, with economic development and optimism about regional development potential, the taboo of doing nothing during Ghost Month has faded year by year and is no longer a taboo. Some people even take this opportunity to rush in and bargain boldly. 1030814