Comparing rent rates to that of the Taipei average

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

I realize this is an impossibly complex question to be distilled down into simple answers, but:

How expensive is the average apartment rent of Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Kaohsiung and Taitung as compared to the average apartment rent of Taipei?

Let’s use Taipei as the benchmark - say that it represents “100.”

In that case, is Taoyuan and Kaohsiung’s average apartment rent about 85% as expensive as Taipei’s average apartment rent?

is Hsinchu’s average apartment rent 80% as expensive as Taipei’s average apartment rent?

Is Taichung’s average apartment rent 70% as expensive as Taipei’s average apartment rent?

is Taitung’s average apartment rent 50% as expensive as Taipei’s average apartment rent?

Ballpark figures are fine.

2

Try numbeo.com and do some comparisons there. I would say Taichung is about 1/2 to 2/3 Taipei for comparable locations.

3

I’ve been doing some in depth research on this and these are the authoritative figures from Taiwan’s best estate agents:

Taoyuan 12%
Kaohsiung 34%
Hsinchu 8%
Taichung 213%
Taidong n/a

4

Sorry, are you trying to tell me that rent in Taoyuan is 12% of rent in Taipei? That a Taipei apartment going for NT$10,000 (there are a few left!) would go for just NT$1,200 in Taoyuan? No way. Even in the most remote part of Taoyuan, that wouldn’t be the case.

I lived in Nankan, which is a bit more expensive than much of Taoyuan, and I can tell you that a 30-ping three-bedroom place can definitely go for NT$15,000. The same would go for at least NT$22,000 and up in Taipei. The difference isn’t great.

Also that Taichung could be more than double the price of Taipei, the capital and most expensive city in Taiwan, is just unfathomable. The problem is you need to make sure you’re looking at homes of comparable size and age and in comparable districts. Otherwise the numbers mean nothing.

5

Somebody missed the sarcasm. It wasn’t great sarcasm though.

I think HH’s numbers are in the ballpark for Taipei vs most of the New Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Kaohsiung and Tainan areas. Tainan might be the cheapest but there are many different levels of housing in each area. And different amounts of newer housing which typically carry a pricing premium.

6

OH, my bad. For some reason I thought that post was written by OP. Well, my points still stand!

7

It’s really hard to make accurate comparisons. Apartments in Taipei - aside from being more expensive - are usually smaller than apartments elsewhere on the island, but even in Taipei the prices are not easy to compare. When I first moved back to Taipei from Taichung, my rent increased by 33%, but my apartment size decreased by 66%. Move to a few years later, and I live in a place that costs 75% more than my last apartment in Taichung, but only has 63% of the floor space. That means it’s still nearly double the size of the taofang I was in at first, for about 30% more in rent.