As income growth continues to lag behind rising housing prices, an increasing number of people are pushing back the age at which they purchase their first home. That is because they must spend more time to earn enough money for a down payment. The average age for first-time home buyers was 30 to 35 in the first quarter of 2013, but for the same period this year it ranged from 35 to 40, Evertrust Rehouse said last week, citing data compiled by the Joint Credit Information Center.
The brokerage also said that the average price of a home purchased by people aged 35 to 40 in the first quarter of this year was NT$11.54 million (US$385,360), NT$4.13 million more than the NT$7.41 million that the same age group spent nine years earlier. However, the floor area of properties purchased by this age group had shrunk by 2.1 ping (6.94m2) to 43.6 ping on average this year, from 45.7 ping in 2013.
In addition, 22 percent of people taking out a mortgage in the first quarter of 2013 were aged 30 to 35, but in the first quarter of this year, primary mortgage takers were aged 35 to 40, accounting for 19 percent of the total, and those aged 50 and older, or 20 percent, the brokerage said, citing the center’s data.
People aged 50 and older have become the primary demographic taking new mortgages, the analysis shows. This phenomenon reflects that people aged 50 and older have sufficient wealth for property purchases, want to purchase properties given that homes are tangible assets that retain value amid global economic changes or choose to transfer some assets to real estate to hand down to their children.
Indeed, people aged 50 and older tend to have a stable income with a good credit record, so it is not unusual that they would become the main demographic taking out mortgages. However, an important takeaway from the data is that if real-estate prices continue to climb faster than wage growth, young adults would face more difficulty buying homes before the age of 35, and the average age for mortgage holders would also likely continue to grow. People who cannot save for a down payment early in life are having greater trouble affording homes, but even when borrowing money to buy a home, rising prices mean heavier mortgage burdens and lower affordability.
Unaffordable housing in Taiwan has been a top public grievance for many years, and the ratio of housing prices to family incomes confirms the trend of deteriorating affordability. Based on data released by the Ministry of the Interior early this month, Taiwanese home prices averaged 9.58 times household income in the first quarter of the year, the highest since the ministry began collecting such data in 2002. Meanwhile, mortgages accounted for 38.35 percent of household income in the first three months this year, up 0.52 percentage points from the previous quarter and 1.81 percentage points from a year earlier, the data showed.
Difficulty in purchasing a home is a crucial factor that keeps people from marrying, and deters young couples from having children, which then affects consumption, investment and production. The government must fulfill its promises to make housing more affordable, or this issue could have a deleterious effect on the nation’s economy and society, to the extent that it evolves into a national security issue.
Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention. If it makes headlines, it is because China wants to invade. Yet, those who find their way here by some twist of fate often fall in love. If you ask them why, some cite numbers showing it is one of the freest and safest countries in the world. Others talk about something harder to name: The quiet order of queues, the shared umbrellas for anyone caught in the rain, the way people stand so elderly riders can sit, the
Taiwan’s fall would be “a disaster for American interests,” US President Donald Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy Elbridge Colby said at his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday last week, as he warned of the “dramatic deterioration of military balance” in the western Pacific. The Republic of China (Taiwan) is indeed facing a unique and acute threat from the Chinese Communist Party’s rising military adventurism, which is why Taiwan has been bolstering its defenses. As US Senator Tom Cotton rightly pointed out in the same hearing, “[although] Taiwan’s defense spending is still inadequate ... [it] has been trending upwards
Small and medium enterprises make up the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, yet large corporations such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) play a crucial role in shaping its industrial structure, economic development and global standing. The company reported a record net profit of NT$374.68 billion (US$11.41 billion) for the fourth quarter last year, a 57 percent year-on-year increase, with revenue reaching NT$868.46 billion, a 39 percent increase. Taiwan’s GDP last year was about NT$24.62 trillion, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, meaning TSMC’s quarterly revenue alone accounted for about 3.5 percent of Taiwan’s GDP last year, with the company’s
There is nothing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) could do to stop the tsunami-like mass recall campaign. KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) reportedly said the party does not exclude the option of conditionally proposing a no-confidence vote against the premier, which the party later denied. Did an “actuary” like Chu finally come around to thinking it should get tough with the ruling party? The KMT says the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is leading a minority government with only a 40 percent share of the vote. It has said that the DPP is out of touch with the electorate, has proposed a bloated
RSS