House prices hit record highs, and 80% of construction projects have monthly sales of less than 10%! Latest data exposes the housing market’s “puffiness”

Prices for new construction across the country are rising, but sales rates remain sluggish. (Photo by reporter Zhu Yuqiao)

According to the latest Cathay Pacific Real Estate Index for the third quarter, the likely transaction price of newly launched projects across the country has increased by 581,700 yuan per square meter, once again hitting a record high. Taipei City has also reached 1.4023 million yuan per square meter, reaching the 1.4 million yuan per square meter mark for the first time. Others such as Taoyuan and Hsinchu have also continued to hit highs; however, the transaction volume is still fluctuating, and the 30-day sales rate of most projects remains low.

Data show that in the third quarter of this year, the 30-day sales rate of new construction projects nationwide was 5.62% nationwide, with more than 80% of construction projects. The 30-day sales rate was less than 10%, that is, less than 10% was sold within a month. The sales rate is still quite long, and compared with the same period last year, the sales rate of construction projects below 10% remained at more than 80%.

As for major counties and cities, the 30-day sales rate of Hsinchu County and City dropped to 5.38%, a decrease of 2.58% from the previous quarter. The 30-day sales rate of Taichung City increased by 1.09 percentage points to 5.3%. The 30-day sales rate of Tainan City increased to 10.32%, the highest among the seven cities, an increase of 4.59 percentage points from the previous quarter.

Statistics show that there were a total of 160 new cases launched this quarter. The number of households promoted was 15,949, an increase from both the previous quarter and the same quarter last year. The total amount of proposals was NT$382.9 billion, an increase from both the previous quarter and the same quarter last year;

Among them, the possible transaction price in the Hsinchu area in the third quarter reached 645,700 yuan per square meter, an annual increase of 26.69%. The transaction price exceeded the high point of the first quarter of 2015 by about one and a half times; the amount of the project also increased by 138.21% year-on-year, but the quarterly sales rate declined significantly.

In the year from the third quarter of 2025 to the third quarter of 2026, although the total transaction volume on the books seems to have rebounded in the latest quarter due to the concentration of "deferred promotions" of large-scale index projects in elite areas, the actual sales rate and buying sentiment are actually as bleak as when the credit control was first fermented a year ago. The overall pressure to remove new projects is still very heavy, showing a "puffy state."