Taipei's most expensive storefront: NT$27,500 per ping per month

According to actual price registration data, among the 10 most expensive storefront rents in Taipei City last year, the priciest was in the Station Front shopping district, at NT$27,500 per ping per month, while the cheapest was on Section 4 of Zhongxiao East Road in the Eastern District, at nearly NT$13,000 per ping.

According to actual price registration data, Sinyi Realty screened out the 10 most expensive storefronts by rent in 2013. The most expensive was a triangular-corner storefront on Guanqian Road in the Station Front shopping district of Taipei, where a 26.83-ping space rented for as much as NT$738,500 per month, equivalent to a unit rent of NT$27,500 per ping; it was leased by a Korean-style drugstore operator, with a rent level comparable to first-tier storefronts in the Eastern District.

Tseng Ching-te, project manager of Sinyi Realty's Real Estate Research Office, said that among the 10 most expensive storefronts by unit rent, about 60% were concentrated in Taipei's Eastern District, while Yongkang shopping district (unit rent NT$18,900 per ping) and Ximending shopping district (unit rent NT$13,500 per ping) each also had one storefront make the list; the cheapest among the top 10 was a storefront at No. 1 to No. 50, Section 4, Zhongxiao East Road, at nearly 27 ping, with a unit rent of NT$12,900 per ping.

Tseng Ching-te noted that in the Eastern District shopping area in recent years, tenant turnover has been astonishingly fast. If a business cannot afford the expensive rent, it must open up a battlefield elsewhere, while the Eastern District shopping area, buoyed by the business opportunities brought by huge crowds of consumers, quickly sees new tenants fill vacancies even when some tenants exit.

He said the Eastern District shopping area has benefited from tourism and the opening of independent travel by mainland Chinese visitors, with street-level storefronts attracting international chain apparel brands, luxury goods and other business types to rush in. To generate rental income from shops, landlords splitting large spaces into small storefronts for lease has become a peculiar phenomenon in the shopping district. From actual price registration data, it can be found that a storefront of less than 8 ping rented for as much as NT$190,000 per month.

A tally of the 10 most expensive storefronts by rent in 2013 shows that about 60% were small shops of 12 ping or less, and the storefront market has gradually shown an M-shaped polarization phenomenon.