What is the general cost of building a regular house in Taiwan on a private piece of land purchased? Nothing super fancy just a regular 2-story 4 bedroom house. Ballpark figure. 5mil/10mil/15mil? Location is say on the outskirts of New Taipei City, north of Tamsui area (Sanzhi district)
It would be great if anyone has built a house in Taiwan and can share what their house cost.
Do you want the chabuduo cost or the “real” cost?
Real cost of course, I was wondering the same thing myself, if you have money it should be a good business in Taiwan.
Chabuduo cost could be done under 1 million.
Using steel girders and sheet metal… like those illegal rooftop constructions.
Doing it right and all that, concrete construction, proper insulation, etc. probably several million. Not sure the real cost. You should be calling various contractors for an estimate.
A friend of mine build a property on some land they owned in Kenting. It is quite an impressive building and involved an architect and engineers etc. From memory the cost was NTD6,000 per sq/m
Real cost would be great so the next typhoon doesn’t blow the roof off
It’s impossible for anyone to give you a cost with the information provided. Renovating just a bathroom can cost anything from NT$20,000 to NT$500,000 or more depending on what you want. The variables for a house are infinite. As TL pointed out, you’ll need to get estimates from contractors once you have some idea of what you want.
The remodeling of my 2-story 4 bedroom apartment costed more than 6 million. Building an entire new house should be more than that.
Keep in mind that a not insignificant chunk of build cost is a function of the exact location of your property.
Say you have an architect draw up plans for home xyz. Building xyz on plot A in New Taipei City may cost >$1 million more than building xyz on plot B in New Taipei City. Same house, but not as convenient for the actual build activity itself. For example, a road/structure/etc may have to be built before cement trucks can get in for a pour.
Just saying.
Also legal issues… what was the land zoned for? If it’s agriculture then there are limits on what you can build before you end up paying way more tax on the land. I think a farm land is allowed a single building for the farmer to live and store their tools and stuff. This rule has been abused to hell by rich guys who spends hundreds of millions of NT$ to build luxury houses even if they are paying next to no tax on the land. But then factories are built on farm lands all the time however they may start cracking down on this. As a foreigner you should do it by the book since you won’t have the necessary guanxi.
The land is connected with electricity and water. Someone bought it and then pulled the plug on building so the price is decent too because they are looking to get out.
We will go view the land this weekend actually.
Try to find out the reason they pulled back on building on it.
Yea, people don’t sell good land and a nice building at a “decent” price for no reason.
It’s like buying used equipment… they were sold for a reason.
I am hoping they ran out of money to build on it 
Better find out before committing. Try to visit during a rainstorm.
Keep in mind if the building had major faults and has to be torn down, add several more millions to the price. I mean things like beach sand house, major structural problems, building mistakes (as in the land was prone to flooding and the builder forgot to take that into account).
I strongly suggest getting lawyers involved if you want to buy this land.
Ya’ll quoting in NTD or USD when you say “a million”?
My understanding is that building costs for an “average” home here (living room too big for any family, 4 beds/3-4 wet baths (open space for shower to spray all over your toilet seat and TP), closet pretending to be kitchen, concrete block with with virtually no windows cuz the Taiwanese would really best live in bunkers many stories under ground since sunlight = bad) is USD250,000.
It’s the cost of the land that’ll kill you. Could you buy 15 ping of developable land in Taipei city for under 2 million USD? Even outside of Taipei city, my understanding is that getting your hands on land to build a house on is virtually impossible. Hence the massive amounts of stupidly constructed apartment complexes in the middle of no-where where each 20 ping unit is USD500,000 or more – the only people who can get the land and the rights to build on it are developers who don’t give a crap about the quality of the building they’re building.
I’d love to hear about what everyone else uncovers. I dream of building a home with nice, large windows that let in plenty of sunlight (but are thick and UV resistant enough to not heat up the place) and a kitchen with enough space to both chop veggies and leave a package of meat that’s headed to a pan without accidentally setting fire to one or both of them due to zero counter space.
Such homes are available for rent in Taiwan, for a price, but land is expensive in Taiwan so if you want that you have to pay for it.
My uncle has such a house in Tainan (in the county, not the city). It’s a 2 story house, very spacious, large kitchen, etc. and it’s actually pretty good even by American standards. I don’t know how much he spent to have it built but it’s concrete obviously. That house is quite large and the guest bedroom they let me stay in is at least 15 ping by my estimate (the entire property is probably at least 200 ping). You do NOT want to build a house in Taiwan like they do in the states, it will last exactly 10 years assuming termites don’t eat it into oblivion after 2 years. Concrete construction won’t be cheap, and if you are buying lands in Taiwan chances are it’s going to have existing building on it which you will have to tear down at your expense.
But if you don’t mind paying 60,000NTD a month or more for rent, they have very nice houses in neihu, beitou, shilin, etc…
They have lands for sale or lease in Xinjhuan that are cheap by Taipei standards, but it’s still more than 10 million NTD. People build factories on them, you wouldn’t want to live here if you want your quiet living.
Many of these places are not very well-constructed either and start having issues pretty early on. Rent new and get the heck out after a year or two is the best strategy in Taiwan IMO.