I’m thinking of buying a house with a friend who is from California. He’d be providing the initial downpayment, and I’d be making the monthly payments afterwards until our investments were equal, after which we’d split it. As an ROC citizen and it being my first home purchase, I get a better loan rate, so we were thinking of my using his money to buy the house first, and then transfer his name to the deed after the loan was secured. Or can we co-purchase it and still get the good rates?
[quote=“purpleflower”]
Meanwhile, in my own research process, I’ve discovered that, for people from the U.S., whether or not they can own a home here largely depends on which STATE they’re from. It’s a reciprocation thing. Being a Californian – where tons of Taiwanese live – I am, indeed, able to purchase a home here under my own name.[/quote]
Can someone tell us which (if any) states in the US forbid Taiwanese to own a house? I’m not aware the states had that power. Or is this simply more Taiwanese BS?
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If you buy an apartment, do you own the land underneath( or a least a percentage) that the apartment building sits on ?
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Can a foreigner get a mortgage on their own or do they need a guarantor? If yes what banks give the mortgage?
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What is the % of the value of the mortgage needed as a downpayment?
If the apartment is located in Taipei city you can get $2.5 mill subsidised, Taipei county is $2 mill…
Yes, you should do, this would be detailed on the deed. This would show things like land ownership, common area, property size, living area, balcony area, etc. If it does not show any land then you don’t own anything…
Actually, my understanding is that you don’t.
Brian
Actually, my understanding is that you don’t.
Brian[/quote]
We bought an apartment in a typical Tawanese 20yo 5 story building, I believe we own a massive ‘5.88’ ping share of the land. In newer high-rise buildings you may not own a share of the land the apartment is built on, ie: could be leasehold or similar. Owning the land has some inherent value…
Edit:: Of course the flipside is you have to pay an annual land tax.
I will try to dig out the deed to confirm…
I am looking at this from a point of investment also.
Assuming you owned the land:
If you were to buy an apartment, say having 5 floors in the building with two apartments per floor (and all the apartments were exaclty the same size), with the building covered say 400 square meters, and you owned the land under it, it would mean that you should own 40 square meters of land
In Taipei city this would be worth a bit, and on the chance some property developer came along and wanted to buy your apartment building out to flatten it and build a new apartment complex, you could in theory sell the land
Wonder though would it this easy to do?
I would be interested to see what the land tax would be if you know per ping?
Has anyone looked at the new apartment called (something like) So Charming, So Beauty on Minchuan East Road, by the China Post?
I think they only had 35 ping and smaller remaining.
It depends. Most places you get a pro-rated portion of the land the building and grounds occupy based on the relative size of the apartment, or a straight split of the property. In other cases different owners will have different portions of the land, and in some cases some owners will own no land. You will need to examine the deed to find out how much land comes with the apartment.
[quote=“Lingchen”]I am in the process of buying a house, and as far as I can tell, I would be allowed to buy it under my name (I am not an ROC ID holder)
However, the cost of doing this is prohibitive. My wife (who is an ROC ID holder) will get far better terms than I could get from any bank. This is why we decided to put it in her name - and probably why most newlyweds do as well.
Let me share with you my own experience [this is code for: now I’m going to ramble. You’ve been warned 
]
In addition to the buyer and seller, there is someone called a “Land Scribe” (代書). In our case, when we met the Seller for the first time, in the room were a whole bunch of people: The Seller, The Seller’s Own Land Scribe, the broker who is serving the Seller, The Land Scribe, my broker who told us about the house, my wife’s friend who knows an awful lot about buying real estate, my wife and I
The Land Scribe handles all the paperwork - filing stuff with the government and making sure that all the contracts are agreed to. He does this by literally reading the terms of sale out to everyone. Then we can argue or suggest changes. To seal the deal, the Buyer and Seller give their chops and ID cards and it is the Land Scribe who has the fun job of chopping the contract.
Why did the Seller in my story need her own Land Scribe? I guess she’s really paranoid. And this fellow did pipe up an objection or two.
Apparently, anyone can become a Land Scribe - kind of like Notary Publics back home, I think. Many realtors here have at least one colleague who is a registered Land Scribe. I just recently learned that my brother-in-law is a Land Scribe! I asked my wife why we didn’t ask him to come along, but she just shrugged the shrug that said, “too many people already in the room lah, stop nagging me!”
The day when we met the Seller was a little surreal for me. I can barely speak Chinese, so everything rushes by me in a blur. Except that this blur takes about two hours… I still can’t believe that Land Scribe read the entire contract to us :snore:
After we chopped everything and handed over our first payment - only a portion the deposit - the Seller’s team left and in walked in a couple of bankers prospecting to lend us a mortgage.
Part of our contract with the Seller was that we would have to get a mortgage within 40 days (sounds very biblical to me). I suppose this means that we are supposed to pony up the money within this period of time, but I’m not so sure. I think they really mean mortgage.
This was one sticky point that the Seller’s Land Scribe had a problem with. After we make our third and final payment on the deposit, the transaction Land Scribe specified 10 days for the mortgage to be tranfered to the Seller. The Seller’s side cried foul. They wanted it shorter. 
My wife’s friend rolled her eyes. She explained to us that we (the Buyer) really don’t have any control of the timing of mortgage payment. After we choose a bank that will lend us the money, it is up to the our Mortgage Bank and the Seller to duke it out. During that time, the bank does its own assessments, and even the Buyer cannot ask it to speed along its process. I suppose we could make some noise, but we shouldn’t expect this to really help.
One more part in my ramble: there are a number of fees that must be taken cared of in the entire process. This is why Land Scribes are useful - it is their headache, and they get paid several thousand bucks to push the paper around.[/quote]
so buying/selling real estate in tw you need “Land Scribe” (代書)? not lawyers eh?