A majority of Taiwanese consider home prices unreasonably high after the mortgage-to-household-income ratio hit a record in Taipei City in the third quarter as prices surged to their highest level in eight years, a government survey released yesterday found.
Prices of newly purchased homes averaged NT$12.35 million (US$405,117) per unit, about 11 times the annual household income in Taipei, the Construction and Planning Agency’s survey found.
Prices have risen to NT$420,000 per ping (3.3m2) the previous high was set in the second quarter of 2002, the survey showed.
Mortgage payments accounted for 43.8 percent of household income in the capital and 31.2 percent for the rest of the country, the survey showed.
“The burdens led 60 percent of respondents in Taipei City and New Taipei City to describe home prices as unreasonable,” said Chang Chin-oh (張金鶚), a land economics professor at National Chengchi University, who helped organize the survey.
Housing prices averaged NT$7.5 million, or 8.9 times household income in New Taipei City (formerly Taipei County), with mortgage payments taking up 34.6 percent, the second-highest after Taipei home owners, the survey said.
The increasing burdens led 70 percent of respondents in New Taipei City to consider home prices unreasonable, the survey said.
Nearly 40 percent of new homebuyers dismissed links between the rising housing prices and Taiwan’s signing of an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China in June, the survey said. The rest considered the pact a mixed blessing.
“The findings indicated reported benefits from ECFA are exaggerated,” Chang said, urging developers and real estate agencies to show restraint in pricing properties.
A majority of the respondents, 53.8 percent, said their home purchases were for their own use, while 18.5 percent cited investment, the survey said.
Chang said the survey showed that the central bank’s tightening measures aimed at cooling down the housing sector have been futile. He suggested the central bank and other regulators take stronger action if they are serious about reining in soaring prices.
The central bank will hold its quarterly board meeting next Thursday to review interest rates and other monetary policy.
INVESTMENT: Jun Seki, chief strategy officer for Hon Hai’s EV arm, and his team are currently in talks in France with Renault, Nissan’s 36 percent shareholder Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the iPhone maker known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, is in talks with Nissan Motor Co’s biggest shareholder Renault SA about its willingness to sell its shares in the Japanese automaker, the Central News Agency (CNA) said, citing people it did not identify. Nissan and fellow Japanese automaker, Honda Motor Co, are exploring a merger that would create a rival to Toyota Motor Corp in Japan and better position the combined company to face competitive challenges around the world, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. However, one potential spanner in the works is
SEMICONDUCTORS: Samsung and Texas Instruments would receive US$4.75 billion and US$1.6 billion respectively to build one chip factory in Utah and two in Texas Samsung Electronics Co and Texas Instruments Inc completed final agreements to get billions of US dollars of government support for new semiconductor plants in the US, cementing a major piece of US President Joe Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act initiative. Under binding agreements unveiled Friday, Samsung would get as much as US$4.75 billion in funding, while Texas Instruments stands to receive US$1.6 billion — money that would help them build facilities in Texas and Utah. The final deals mean the chipmakers can begin collecting the funding when their projects hit certain benchmarks. Though the terms of Texas Instruments’ final agreement is
Call it an antidote to fast fashion: Japanese jeans hand-dyed with natural indigo and weaved on a clackety vintage loom, then sold at a premium to global denim connoisseurs. Unlike their mass-produced cousins, the tough garments crafted at the small Momotaro Jeans factory in southwest Japan are designed to be worn for decades, and come with a lifetime repair warranty. On site, Yoshiharu Okamoto gently dips cotton strings into a tub of deep blue liquid, which stains his hands and nails as he repeats the process. The cotton is imported from Zimbabwe, but the natural indigo they use is harvested in Japan —
Japan ramped up its warnings against currency speculation on Friday after the yen slid to a five-month low following a hint from the central bank chief that he might wait longer than expected before raising interest rates. “The government’s deeply concerned about recent currency moves, including those driven by speculators,” Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We will take appropriate action if there are excessive moves in the currency market.” The yen regained some ground against the dollar after Kato’s remarks, strengthening to as much as ￥156.89 after earlier weakening to ￥157.93. The Japanese currency strengthened a little further after currency
RSS