In December 2010, while property prices were on the rise, the Ministry of Finance implemented a preferential housing loan program with favorable mortgage rates for first-time homebuyers in an effort to lessen the pressure on young people and meet real demand for self-occupied homes. Eight state-run banks have participated in the program, and anyone without a property registered under their name could apply for the loans regardless of their earning ability.
As home prices continued to soar, a lack of affordable housing remained a top complaint among young people. The ministry in August last year instructed the state-run banks to refine four major areas of the preferential loan program. The revisions offer more flexible conditions for applicants, such as increasing the maximum loan amount from NT$8 million to NT$10 million (US$245,806 to US$307,257), extending the loan period from 30 to 40 years and expanding the grace period for repayment from three years to five years. In addition, the government and the banks provide additional loan interest subsidies lasting three years until July 31, 2026.
From August last year to May, the revised program had alleviated the financial burden on many young families, assisting in the purchase of 57,980 homes by people who previously did not own a house. About 73 percent of the people who took out the loans were aged 40 or younger, ministry data showed. The revised program has helped support the local housing market, driving average prices to rise more than 10 percent year-on-year during the first four months of this year and ushering in the start of a new housing boom since the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, it has also prompted the central bank to introduce a sixth round of selective credit controls to cool the housing market as well as raise the reserve requirement ratio by 0.25 percentage points to soak up about NT$120 billion of liquidity in the market. Meanwhile, critics have raised concerns over the misuse of the program, such as borrowers using dummy bank accounts to apply for preferential housing loans or leasing their houses for investment purposes.
The renewed surge in home prices might stem from the recovering growth in the economy, the wealth effect of a bullish stock market or an imbalance between supply and demand in the housing market. It might also be caused by people’s inflationary expectations or investor speculation. The preferential loan program is not solely to blame for rising housing prices and should not be discredited as a tool of real-estate speculators; rather, it helps those in need.
Nonetheless, the negative sentiment toward the preferential loan program indicates that there is still room for improvement, from drafting new measures to conducting process simulations and executing a revised program. The government must also work harder to crack down on abuse. The Executive Yuan’s decision to conduct a comprehensive review of the program is a good start, and its announcement last week to tighten rules for borrowers shows that this administration remains committed to promoting housing justice, combating real-estate speculation and taking care of young people.
However, to facilitate the healthy development of the overall housing market, the government needs to go further and conduct a comprehensive review of the nation’s real-estate policies, accounting for key elements such as population and family structure, regional and industrial development, transportation and quality of life. A crisis can serve as a turning point, and complaints about the preferential loan program could hopefully be a good start for the government to refine its real-estate policy.
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