31% of Taiwanese earn less than NT$30,000; 10% earn over NT$61,000 per month

Maybe he was not here for the credit card slave debacle. Lost count of suicides that year.

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The 18% bank accounts. The 80 plus landlord hogs. The second generation big company princes who buy an enterprise, take it IPO, run it to the ground to cash in, go again.

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I was saving to buy a house. I gave up. Now I treat myself to a nice trip every two years, invest for retirement. Housing market too messed up.

Like Brian, I also invested in education, I paid for my Mandarin classes by selling my car and all assets I had back in the ol country, paid my MBA through work. I bought all my furnishings, new now as I am on my 3rd fridge and 2nd AC. I eat better than before, for health reasons.

My firts salary here in Taiwan was 30k. That was 20 years ago. It was enough then.

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Market is out there? Well, not all Taiwanese spend a shitload of money because they have a lot of costs.

I hope heā€™s not talking about restaurants .

Thereā€™s a giant market out there where most people lose money.

Costs like buxiban, piano class, violin class etcā€¦

If you have a mortgage that is the big one. A lot of people have heavy mortgage burdens too, something like 40% of earnings . Most people arenā€™t so well off to get free houses.

Only 9.35? Wow it must have gone down a lot. I remember a few years back everyone was freaking out about how it was like 15 or 20.

In Taipei, the price-to-income ratio was even higher in the Greater Taipei area at 15.47 in Taipei and 12.7 in New Taipei.

The sad thing is, those numbers are hardly exclusive to Taiwan. Itā€™s the same or worse in a lot of big cites.

These numbers are not in coherence, but they are all telling the same story: housing is a disaster pretty much everywhere.

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Correct itā€™s the same in many capital cities in particular .
At least we have the option of relatively cheap rent here and housing is easy to find.

Dublin city is an absolute nightmare now as well you can barely even find accommodation there, when you do it will cost a fortune to rent or buy. In fact in the whole country of Ireland there are only 3,400 places listed for rent online.

This is a problem of allowing housing to be turned into a captive market.

Captive because there are many planning regulations which prevent free market operating and people need a roof over their head.

Market because many countries have turned housing into commodities to be traded and speculated with.

This is another good article about mortgages in Taiwan.

My first salary in Taiwan was NTD18k and I need to have part-time job right after my morning shift. I pay bedspace 3k monthly not including food and necessities per month, I donā€™t buy clothes as I use hotel uniform.

Then I jump to office work start at 25k then 28k then 30k which is really not enough as my rent/food/transportation increase, adding up I need to support my old parents. I keep jumping to different companies then became 40ish still not enough as Iā€™m still supporting my 2 old parents and 1 brother who are sick.

Right now, iā€™m a bit ok as my son is working uni student which is less burden.
I tried to minimized all expenses and tried my best to save a little drop of my salary to health insurance.

To people who experience the hardship they tend to realized the importance and value of joining the protest about this labor rules and for people who got paid high they donā€™t care much.

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Sounds about right

They were having such a discussion on the DW one of these days. They said that most investors that own like 90% of properties in Amsterdam or Paris are holding companies and the money goes back toā€¦ New Jersey? As tax havens.

Free market my foot.

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Hm, situation in europe is way worse when it comes to renting. I was in berlin, checkin situation, and bellow 1000 euros (like 35k twd) i could only find shitholes. And landlords act like gods, they wanted like 5 different documents (clearance of debt, credit ratings, income statements etc). And i was like i have never lived in germany before and they were like we do not care, there are thousands people willing to show us documents. You have to find an agency, pay em 2k to 3k euros so they can help arrange you everything or you burn 2months of time and stresss dealing with complicated germans landlords.

Keep in mind they saying berlin is cheap, comparing to western europe. God knows how is london.

At least in taiwan you can find basic accommodation fast, as well basic jobs come fast.

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ā€¦Benefit of being in an unpopular place. :smile:

The only solution to housing crises in particular and the struggle for economic survival in general is to finally recognize that natural resources exist to sustain life, not to make the few rich. No one would then be allowed to speculate in and accumulate more natural resources such as living space than they personally need. Wealth generated from natural resources such as minerals, arable land, forests, seas etc. would be a birthright, shared equally by all as annual dividends. Everyone would fully own their personal share of natural resources. Government would own nothing. Birthright natural wealth would be managed corporation style by say, Taiwan Inc., with all citizens as shareholders.

The result? Speculative fever over housing would subside because people could only buy and sell their own living space. Prices would subside. Every citizen would become a homeowner because we all live somewhere now, right?, as rents are transformed into finite mortgage payments. Donā€™t like where you live now? Trade with someone then and exchange any money necessary to make up for any difference in desirability. Housing transactions would also be vastly simplified by adopting blockchain technology for housing trades, significantly reducing the cost and complexity of housing swaps by eliminating the speculative middlemen currently controlling the process, With blockchain technology adopted for housing, you could be the owner of a new house tomorrow and in it in a week, for a couple of thousand NT in transaction costs.

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You really believe simply changing to block chain would make housing so cheap?
We would have to change a lot of laws to treat property as a public good first.

Blockchain technology wouldnā€™t make housing cheap. It would make the cost of buying and selling housing cheap, as anyone whoā€™s ever paid four to six percent of 20-30 million NT for a few hours of work by real estate ā€œprofessionalsā€ can appreciate.

They usually live in taofangs in old buildings, not single flats in new fancy ones. And they also donā€™t have that much time spending money anyway (always WOK HAD until you die and then WOK little bit MO). Yes, you canā€™t earn yourself a house with that, or buy a car, and thatā€™s an issue, but you can afford a scooter and weekend trips. Some foreigners are really spoiled here earning more than starting engineers in Science Park of Hsinchu =)