Hok, these aren’t isolated cases. Taiwan is one of the worst abusers of land expropriation in the world. One article I read said nearly 100% of applications for land expropriation were accepted.
The law does not even require fair compensation and is very vague, has few means for forcing a clear examination of the necessity of the act, and leaves far too much discretion to the officials who have a clear conflict of interest in many cases. You’re a bit of a scholar. Do some research on this.
How about San Francisco. According to the latest US Census the average household income was about 72,000 US$. Check this listing (http://www.century21.com/property/304-green-st-san-francisco-ca-94133-CBR20747995) for a 48 ping apartment. The price is 1.7 million US$. That is 23 times the average household income in San Francisco.
There are reasons other than the concrete box why prices are the way prices are. Taipei has a capital bias and year after year the city grows. People come for jobs, education or simply because they like it better. And many stay. The housing market is largely driven by demand and you know how the local culture is: renting is a waste of money, owning is everything!
I don’t dispute their intelligence, but I think that is a very individual decision that cannot be generalized. I see real estate as a long term investment and do not want to sell. Renting out generates the initial investment within about 20-25 years. Good enough for me.
As long as there are people paying these prices, they will not come down.
Read the law and relevant enforcement acts. There are minimum quotas unless national defence is part of the deal. Besides land is compensated according to market value.
Oh you might be surprised. In most of Europe it’s easy enough if they find gas or coal under your property.
Hsinchu Science Park laid the foundation for Taiwan’s economic success. Farmland is not where the future lies for Taiwan’s economic success. Imported rice from Thailand, Vietnam and Mainland China is already cheaper than local rice. Why are countries like Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg or Denmark wealthy? Not because of agriculture that makes a mere 3-6%of their GDP.
i recall when I was younger, the streets in front of my apartment building were bring widened by the city. All the tall beautiful coconut trees along the side of the road were leveled. There no longer was a side walk. And instead of getting money from the city, all the tenants had to pay the city a “development benefit fee.” till this day that street sees very little traffic.
[quote=“hsinhai78”]Renting out generates the initial investment within about 20-25 years. Good enough for me.
[/quote]
Are we talking about the same Taipei here? The one where the price-to-rent ratio is the highest in the entire world?
(link: globalpropertyguide.com/Asia … rent-ratio)
The one where a 10-ping taofang rents for NT$10,000, but the landlady paid NT$6 million for it a few years ago, and so would need to collect 50 years of rent just to break even? That’s where I lived for most of the past 3 years, and I have no idea why my landlady thought it was a good idea.
(She had originally asked for 12,000, but I haggled it down.)
The best most people can expect is to make up the monthly payments on their mortgage, but if you want to make a profit, you need to have bought decades ago.
You also need to compare prices in places outside of Taipei. Taoyuan has seen the largest increase in the country over the past several months, so don’t compare it to San Francisco, compare it to the entire SF Bay Area. With Taoyuan prices approaching the “affordable” areas of Taipei, it’s clear that something really strange is happening here.
And regardless of the whys and wherefores, it’s clear that land is at a premium. For the Dapu families, just like the Shilin Wang family, their land was taken away for whatever reason, and they were given a very small amount of money that wouldn’t be able to buy back comparable land in the same area. I’m not saying it’s illegal, but I certainly do believe it is immoral.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”][quote=“hsinhai78”]Renting out generates the initial investment within about 20-25 years. Good enough for me.
[/quote]
Are we talking about the same Taipei here? The one where the price-to-rent ratio is the highest in the entire world?
(link: globalpropertyguide.com/Asia … rent-ratio)
The one where a 10-ping taofang rents for NT$10,000, but the landlady paid NT$6 million for it a few years ago, and so would need to collect 50 years of rent just to break even? That’s where I lived for most of the past 3 years, and I have no idea why my landlady thought it was a good idea.
(She had originally asked for 12,000, but I haggled it down.)
[/quote]
How does 40,000 x 12 x 24 sound to you? :discodance:
Taoyuan will have a direct MRT link, that is what happening. And to be honest, these new areas in Taoyuan with sidewalks and wide roads are much nicer than Sanchong or Xinzhuang.
These people received market-value compensations. I can see how you find the Dapu case with farmer families immoral. But the Wang family? Their alleged “family home for generations” was purchased ten years ago, had multiple illegal additions and the entire block already agreed to the urban renewal. Only the Wangs opposed it, probably hoping for an even higher compensation. It’s disgusting how the Wang case or the case of people squatting land are turned into human rights issues. IMHO illegal additions to buildings by itself should be enough to expropriate the owners without any compensation whatsoever. Ridiculous how people like the Wangs don’t give a rat’s ass about zoning and building laws but now want to sue every level of government.
You are seriously going to hold the US property market up as a model? Seriously?
Still living in the 90s. Taipei has been shrinking for years as people head to New Jack for cheaper housing. Property is fueled by speculation and the fact taxes are so low it’s a nice tax shelter.
[quote]
Read the law and relevant enforcement acts. There are minimum quotas unless national defence is part of the deal. Besides land is compensated according to market value.[/quote]
Nonsense. Read the lack of clarity in the law, and read who gets to set housing values.
I like how you always revert to the letter of the law. It’s always the way of authoritarians.
Yawn. Taiwan has dozens of science parks.
All societies have to keep agriculture a healthy if small portion of the economy. It still provides jobs for life for a great many people. Switzerland’s farmers produce 65% of the food consumed in the country. That ensures quality control, no national security dangers, and jobs for life for a lot of people.
I recall during the fight over the Changhua petrochemical plant the oyster farmers saying they already had a good living. Why did they need to give it up so they could be janitors at a science park?
[quote=“hsinhai78”]
How does 40,000 x 12 x 24 sound to you? :discodance: [/quote]
Where do you get NT$40,000 from? And please don’t answer in a PM. I don’t look at them unless I know the person. Way too many weirdos out there if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
This is incredible, initially surprising but then not I guess. I didn’t know they actually dug up sidewalks! I knew sidewalks were occupied but not removed completely.
^^ I think he’s saying that’s what he charges in rent every month. My god, that’s MORE than I was making at my last job.
Anyway, you can argue all day that the Hsinchu Science Park has boosted Taiwan’s development and I won’t have two words of opposition to offer up. But I will point to China’s economic success and note that it’s really easy to make economic progress when nobody opposes you or asks questions. I don’t know as much about the Wang family as I do about Dapu, so I won’t comment on that, but there does seem to be a worrying trend of very legal expropriation that nonetheless sets a precedent for tearing down private property in the name of often unnecessary public infrastructure.
This is not setting a precedent. This has been happening for decades and is as common as lu rou. There’s no point arguing that this is something that needs to be nipped in the bud. It’s already a full grown tree (that was torn down and trashed and replaced with a high rise).
Well the first part is completely and utterly wrong. It is not driven by real demand, but by speculative investment and corrupt politicians. Yes there is a demand for families to live in apartments in New Taipei City and Taoyuan, but there wouldn’t be such a demand if Taipei City’s prices weren’t so crazy in the first place. A very large number of new apartments all around Taiwan, luxury ones in particular, are unoccupied.
The facilitator to this property boom is cheap and easily available credit along with the special tax schemes that have been enacted by the corrupt legislators and their developers friends to channel money into this area. When it looked like the boom was losing steam they sneaked in a massive reduction on gift and inheritance tax to just 10%, which juiced the whole thing again. In fact almost all housing booms are based on leverage not demand, this is what makes property busts so bad as an asset can turn into a massive debt overnight. This year has a record number of developments launching, I believe this is the classic ‘crack-up’ boom period and the shit will hit the fan within a couple of years.
A similar thing is going on in the UK right now, theguardian.com/books/2013/a … am-housing , but they do have demand from an increasing population, Taiwan does not.
Between interest rates going back up and the lack of growth in population or the economy, property here is already maxed out.
This could well be the future of many new property owners. bbc.co.uk/news/business-23681604
As for your 40,000 x 12 x 24, it means nothing unless you know how much you paid for it. We’ve had these discussions here before and a common multiple of rent:mortgage pay-off was between 50-100 with some guys saying their apartment would take 130 years to pay off by rent…which is insane! Of course they may not have included inflation but at the same time they probably also didn’t take into account higher interest rates!
Finally comparing San Francisco to Taipei gave me a good laugh, San Francisco has Google and Silicon Valley and Tesla nearby and Taipei has…?
Oh I forgot, I live in one of the world’s most intelligent cities , must be obscured by all those binlang stains I see dotted around.
Well they seem to have invented the ‘sewer river’ which is pretty smart, I mean you just use the river for your shit and don’t even need to build a sewer, brilliant! :roflmao:
[quote=“headhonchoII”]
This is incredible, initially surprising but then not I guess. I didn’t know they actually dug up sidewalks! I knew sidewalks were occupied but not removed completely.[/quote]
Left: A typical Japanese era street. As you can see, there used to be sidewalks with trees next to the Qilou. Most cities during the martial law era made the citizens pay “development benefit fee” to have these removed.
Right: Same street today. Of course this street get a lot more traffic than my street… but they pretty much does this to every street. Taipeinites probably can recognize this street with ease.
Great pic. The only decent parts of the city, except around 101, are the areas that preserve the Japanese era architecture. The KMT were and are utter barbarians, devoid of taste.
I bet they didn’t have the numbers of cars and scooters and buses and taxis in the Japanese times.
The calculation refers to the actual number of years for the investment to be compensated, or in other words for it to have generated 100% in accumulated interest. 25 years is my personal maximum.
Even in the case of expropriation “concrete gold” is much safer than long term bank investment. The European Commission will finance future bailouts with savings accounts of ordinary people, in the US banks go broke and who knows what will happen to Hong Kong after 2047. In case the government takes your house away you will at least get cash.
Concrete gold is a crap investment if a) it doesn’t make you any more money than you put in b) you need to pay taxes and maintenance fees on it c) you need to deal with pesky tenants d) it depreciates as the apartment building gets old and crappy and e) the biggest reason of all, you over loaded on credit and in a bust you are going to go bankrupt because when you sell it you still owe the bank the loan.
Ask the Japanese what they think of concrete gold.
These people received market-value compensations. I can see how you find the Dapu case with farmer families immoral. But the Wang family? Their alleged “family home for generations” was purchased ten years ago, had multiple illegal additions and the entire block already agreed to the urban renewal. Only the Wangs opposed it, probably hoping for an even higher compensation. It’s disgusting how the Wang case or the case of people squatting land are turned into human rights issues. IMHO illegal additions to buildings by itself should be enough to expropriate the owners without any compensation whatsoever. Ridiculous how people like the Wangs don’t give a rat’s ass about zoning and building laws but now want to sue every level of government.[/quote][/quote]
Sadly , I am heavily involved in a Miaoli Development, which, although nothing to do with Dapu, has meant the postponement of our Project because of the current pressure. The facts are more like you have stated and the Mayor is about the most efficient and HONEST I have met in Taiwan. The LAW is the issue here. It was followed …to the letter…by the Mayor, indeed he has been more patient than I would have been.
The Media have simply incited the Sheeple to protest at what appears(on the face of it) to be unjust and newsworthy. If the people of Taiwan think the Law is unjust it is up to them to change things, not to criticize its enforcement.That is a separate argument , completely.
It is unfortunate that some people only glean information from a sensationalist Media in Taiwan and fail to dig deeper,before expressing their “green” or “Missionary”
agendas We can get angry, we can get frustrated, we can see a better way sometimes but it really needs a Taiwanese solution, in the end.
Any sane government would have banned scooters long ago. Even China does so in most large cities.
Your excuse seems to be, well, the KMT couldn’t organize traffic in any rational way so the only thing to do was let anarchy play out and widen streets and make everyone worse off.
Oh and aren’t you the guys bashing vendors for not being considerate of the public good?
:roflmao:
We can get angry, we can get frustrated, we can see a better way sometimes but it really needs a Taiwanese solution, in the end. 
