Young adults in Taipei have faced major economic barriers in buying their own home in recent years, their stagnant incomes unable to keep up with soaring home prices driven ever higher by investors looking for a place to park their funds.
However, a recent survey by local real-estate broker H&B Business Group has found that people in Taipei buy their first home at the age of 39, two to three years younger than their peers in metropolitan areas of Japan and Germany.
That finding defies logic because, according to Construction and Planning Agency Director-General Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文), the average housing price in Taipei is 14.1 times annual household income, compared with 8.8 times in Japan.
H&B Business Group spokeswoman Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨) said local parents are the great equalizers.
“It is not that these first-time home buyers in Taiwan really make a lot of money, but that the financial help from parents is the key reason why they are able to buy their first home earlier than others,” she said.
A 31-year-old office worker in Taipei who identified himself as Hsuma typifies this phenomenon.
When he bought a unit in a 23-year-old apartment building in Taipei three years ago for NT$7.5 million (US$237,000), his parents contributed between NT$2 million and NT$3 million as a down payment.
“I think it’s almost impossible for young people to buy their own home solely on their own,” he said.
He considers buying an apartment to be better than renting one if one plans to live in a city for a long time and now pays an affordable mortgage of NT$10,000 per month thanks to his parents’ help.
The H&B Business Group survey found, however, that even with the help of parents, Taipei’s relatively high housing prices meant that people in the capital bought their first apartment at a later average age than elsewhere in the country.
First-time home buyers in Taipei were on average 39.4 years old last year (up from 37.1 years of age in 2008), compared with 33 to 35 years old in the metropolitan areas of Taichung and Kaohsiung.
People who are 30 to 34 years of age in Taiwan earn a monthly income of NT$32,787 on average, government figures show.
Because of concerns that housing prices in Taipei have soared to inaccessible levels, and fears of a growing income gap that will make it impossible for some to ever buy property in the capital, the government took measures between March and June to dampen speculation.
According to Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), a senior researcher at Taiwan’s Sinyi Realty Co, there were 3,850 real estate transactions last month, down 24.29 percent from 5,085 transactions a month earlier and the lowest in 18 months.
Su said the decline in the third quarter, normally the low season in real estate, rarely exceeds 15 percent, indicating that the central bank’s measures are taking effect.
However, Hsu questioned how long-lasting the impact of the measures will be.
“We believe that these government measures will only have a short-term cooling effect on housing prices in Taipei,” Hsu said. “We expect housing prices to continue to rise over the long-term and this will make home-buying even more difficult for young people.”
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS