The Cabinet yesterday gave the go-ahead to measures to restrict favorable lending terms for first-home purchases to once per person and require borrowers to sign an affidavit stating the house is intended for self-occupancy.
The tightened requirements came amid rising concerns over dummy buyers and misuse of loans, as mortgage operations have soared to new highs and home prices have increased by double-digit percentage points across Taiwan.
“The restrictions will go into practice immediately,” Deputy Minister of Finance Frank Juan (阮清華) told a media briefing in Taipei, adding that state-run lenders would closely review loan applicants to root out dummy buyers and property investment.
Photo: CNA
Surveys have showed that favorable lending terms introduced in August last year have revived a property boom, as they allow first-home buyers an interest rate of 1.775 percent, a five-year grace period and mortgages of up to 40 years.
Investors and wealthy people have allegedly used dummy buyers, including their children, to take advantage of the program designed to help people with real demand to buy a home, Juan said.
State-run lenders would tighten reviews of loan applications from the same household and ask borrowers to pledge that they would not lease the house, which would be against the self-occupancy requirement, he said.
People found to have contravened the rules would have their interest subsidy revoked and must return the difference, he said.
Furthermore, favorable lending terms are limited to once per person, meaning that those who sell a home purchased under the program would not qualify to apply again, Juan said.
As of May 31, the program had aided 57,980 house purchases, with combined mortgages totaling NT$428.1 billion (US$13.16 billion), the ministry said.
Houses valued at under NT$15 million accounted for 78.2 percent of the deals, while 72.99 percent of the people who took out the mortgages were 40 or younger, implying that the program effectively benefitted target buyers and should not be held responsible for rising house prices, Juan said.
Mortgages of 31 to 40 years constituted 50.01 percent of homes bought under the program, while floor areas of 16 ping to 45 ping (48.9m2 to 148.8m2) accounted for 67.76 percent of the homes, he said.
The interest subsidy had cost the state coffers NT$1.78 billion and the government would set aside more money to sustain the program until it expires in 2026, Juan said.
State-run lenders have identified suspect cases and would crack down on abuse of the program, he added.
Real-estate brokers said that the three-year interest subsidy and five-year grace period provide sufficient room for profit-taking for people who cannot afford mortgages.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS