My inlaws have very similar issues, land often co-owned , some may have criminal records, one occupies some prime tourism site land the others afraid to turf him off as he is extremely violent. Has been jailed multiple times and nothing to lose. It often happens that desperadoes and bullies end up occupying some of these sites.
Parents in law also stubborn as hell want to grow rice on everything and control everything.
Just better off buying a place of own…the shock are the bloody prices being charged across the whole country for small bits of farmland. .
Yeah, land not cheap now.
It was 15-20 years ago.
Just need to keep searching.
I’d guess Pingtung and Kaohsiung still somewhat “cheap” relatively.
Are you using a local real estate firm? If not, try one in the countryside. Sometimes not all land is up for sale on websites.
We found that piece of land thru local agent, and I don’t think it was listed on any website back then.
1 Like
Oh man , that first plot sounds like a hassle.
Our ‘plot’ is actually 2. We bought 2 adjacent plots owned by 2 siblings. Relatively straightforward on building if/when want to.
How are neighbors using/living on the second plot?
No experience with discrimination, but i have 4 or 5 local friends that rent out properties that belonged to their deceased grand parents and have no problem finding tenants.This tells me that people have no problem renting out or moving into a property where someone died.
1 Like
I have direct experience when I was looking to rent an apartment for my elderly parent and their Indonesian care taker… Even Tsui Mama couldn’t help…
3 Likes
This is really good info about buying land and the difficulty of doing so.
Maybe a thread split? 
Ask your local friends if they’re reluctant to rent to elderly tenants.
Any recommendation on finding a local agent?
Don’t choose Hsin Yi, Yung Chang, or any one of the bigger ones. If you have not heard of its name, then it’s probably a local one. They’re all working on a commission, so a local one likely gets a bigger chunk (and so works harder) as part of the commission is not siphoned off by head office.
I’ve thought about buying out the siblings in the house but I don’t think they’re willing.
On the 2nd plot, neighbors are farming it. MIL is down there now trying to kick them out.
2 Likes
You’re the one that brought up tenants passing away! 
Since Covid a lot of the places out here where I live (Yunlin) have increased by at least 50%.
1 Like
Prices online are ridiculous.
2 Likes
We all know where Taiwan is headed, demographically.
Immigration reform is glacially slow.
Given these factors, how on earth can these property prices be sustained?
Guy
2 Likes
I think a couple of factors at play or may not be at play.
Taiwan’s countryside was a place that its residents fled to go to the big city to find a job. However, big cities no longer affordable, and so maybe some younger ex-countrysiders are going back home and doing family work (farming, fishing) in the search for easy lifestyle.
Separately, there are higher income city-slickers who are selling their rich apartments to go retire in countryside (kind of like rich Californians going to Wyoming, Montana, etc.), buying property, and pushing out locals.
As @cjasonc said, COVID has pushed people to go in search of ‘safety’ or places where they can WFH. Countryside land fits this.
Lastly, the ‘golden age’ of urbanization is over. We’ll probably see a slow reversal of last few decades of this. This is not just happening in Taiwan
Anyway, a few 
I admit I am struggling to see this in Taiwan. Maybe it’s happening, but if it is I guess the population of extremely densely populated places like Xinbei would be declining. Is this actually happening?
Guy
Yip, Jackson and Missoula are full of such transplants, not always welcomed by the local gentries.
I shouldn’t be too critical though—I have Pendleton motifs throughout my cottage. Then again, it is my fucking Prairie pioneer birthright!!! 
World-Class Wool Blankets | Pendleton | Pendleton Woolen Mills (pendleton-usa.com)
My wife and I were looking at land in Taoyuan. But most land in Taiwan is prohibitively over-priced in my opinion. The land that was affordable was either too small to build on (according to local council rules), or too far away.
Then there’s land that MUST be used for farming with various local laws that enforce this. That’s why you see some houses surrounded by rice fields. Not because the owner wants it that way, but because they have to let locals on their land to farm.
My father-in-law got rich from buying up rice fields on the outskirts of Taipei back in the 1960s. I don’t think that will ever happen again.
Renting is a far better option in my opinion.
2 Likes
Don’t know.
What I do know was about a decade ago, I visited the property on a bike ride and came upon a retired airline pilot and wife. He had sold place in Taoyuan and retired there and built house on similar plot of land as ours.
Got to talking and he mentioned another landowner nearby who was as of then not-retired doctor from Taichung who was building his retirement home.
Being a decade ago, I can place a big bet that this trend only continued in last decade, as evidenced by prices of land in our 社區 having gone up quite a lot.
But surely this trend is not the same as people fleeing cities due to COVID concerns. Maybe this occurred in the US with the work from home trend and the evident depopulation of cities like San Francisco. But in Taiwan, I don’t quite see it.
Guy
1 Like