Appreciate the kind offer!
I might PM you for more details once I get further along in the process.
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Are you happy so far?
I am. I live in taichung so the prices are a little more affordable. We paid about 8.4 million and payments are only 28,000/month. Itās affordable and nice knowing Iām saving money instead of paying rent.
Most buildings have small issues but nothing major yet.
Also, Iām still under 40 so a 30 year mortgage is manageable
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Was it possible to put it in both of your names and how much was that?
Not possible. I was adamant that the house had to be in my name. But after realizing if we bought the apartment after getting married, it shouldnāt really matter. Iām making the payments from my account, so thereās that. Iām still not clear about diving up property sold a divorce ever happenā¦ But Iām not worried about that.
Anyways, my bank said no wayā¦ Not possible to put both our names. They didnāt really get the big deal and were confused why I kept insisting on having the house in my name.
Why the 
would they be confused (pardon my French ). This is a country where people are very careful with their money and who owns what.
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Thatās true, assets acquired post-marriage. But Iād be adamant too just for safety. Anything can happen besides and concurrent with divorce. Death, debt, lawsuits.
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Sounds like typical Taiwanese discrimination against foreigners. That said, Iām a Chinese (not white) foreigner and have typically gotten loans with ~2% interest rate so maybe that 4-5% above prime is racist? House was in both mine and my Taiwanese wifeās name
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Iāve just bought a house, we were going to get a morgage with 30% down when the FIL cashed out some assets and decided we were going to borrow from him, so canāt comment on the loan side of it (although, technically speaking, no co-signer as weāve signed nothing on this loan). The property is in both my wifeās and my name. It was a little extra money (like a couple of extra thousand nt) because we needed to get twice the amount of documents, but no one seemed surprised that I wanted to make sure my name was on the title deed.
It could be helpful to clarify this part a bit:
First off, thereās a huge difference in the amount of down payment needed for a new house vs used. Used houses require 30% down, thatās pretty big IMO. New houses/apartments only require 10% down. The building company finances the mortgage.
I think you can categorize houses into three categories:
- Used (i.e. not new construction)
- New construction
- Pre-construction
For 10% down and company finances the mortgage, do you mean new construction or pre-construction?
I recently bought a new construction home, but my credentials are a NWOHR passport and TARC (will create a separate post about it in more detail later) and buying without being married or having a partner in the mortgage. That said, I learned some things that may be useful to everyone on any type of resident permit:
- In general, banks prefer a permanent resident ARC rather than one with an expiration date. Duration within the country and whether or not a work permit is in the mix also matters, I think.
- Some construction companies can help you with financing, but not sure if all will. Most construction companies have a specific bank they partner with, I believe. In my case, the bank that partnered with the construction company did not offer mortgages to people with any type of resident permit.
- You donāt necessarily need to be married to a local or have a guarantor ļ¼I mean äæčäŗŗ ā not sure what the best translation is for thatļ¼, but it can help with many cases and many banks prefer it. Actually Iām thinking you may have been able to have your wife (if you had been married at the time) or someone else act as the guarantor/äæčäŗŗ and kept the house in your name, if you talked to some additional banks or asked the bank about this method. Iām not completely sure, but just wanted to mention it as an option for other people to check out.
- A guarantor/äæčäŗŗ often needs to themselves have enough financial qualifications to handle some level of risk related to being the guarantor of the mortgage in case some issue happens. Different banks have different criteria for this role, but itās usually required to be a direct relative who is a full citizen of Taiwan.
- The rate you actually get can be based on various factors, and I think mostly comes down to what the loan reviewer/manager/officer is willing to dish out after checking your specs. I think also how available you are to answer their questions via phone and how well you answer them matter, based on my experiences applying at a few banks.
- Another consideration is where your income is from ā local, or overseas. If some or all is overseas, youāll need to prepare some documentation and not all banks are able/willing to review that information since itās from another country and usually in another language.
- One bank told me they just wonāt deal with mortgage loans to foreigners because too many people bailed on them or had issues. You may need to talk to many banks or loan salespeople to find one who will work with your case and particular aspects.
- I ended up getting a loan for 80% with a 20% down payment at 1.63% (but I got some cash back via a special discount from the construction company) ā originally I was told maybe I could get lower, like 1.56%. People considered this to be a little āhighā based on my stats, due to being on a TARC and having all of my financial info overseas, but for me this seems ridiculously low compared to other countries. The income you can prove can also matter, of course, as well as other financial details. How much the house costs also probably matters in both what amount you can get the loan for and what interest rate, of course.
- I have to say, this sounds great but this was after talking to several banks and hitting a lot of dead ends and problems.
- Another thing to watch out for is when you sign the purchase contract to go into a purchase agreement with a seller, they may have a clause about penalizing you if you back out of the agreement. This can be a problem if you agree to buy a house at the higher end of your purchasing range, and then you canāt get a loan to cover it. It can get a little stressful if you run into this case. Be sure to review purchase agreements carefully and talk it over with experts if needed, or ask to have agreements changed/amended before signing anything if you feel like you need the safety. The penalty can be steep in some cases (i.e. the entire down payment amount), and Iām not sure to what extent they are enforceable.
- Note that you donāt truly know what offer you will get until you apply and go through the process. What the salesperson says and what their loan department give you can be different things.
- Donāt jump too quickly to assume discrimination. Each bank has their own standards and process for evaluating whether or not to give a loan and how much to give. Some banks partner with an evaluating company that specializes in these financial evaluations. I donāt think theyāre legally obligated to take on risk beyond what they deem is financially viable, and they need to answer to their owners/shareholders and not take on risk beyond what makes sense to them.
- That said, I definitely had some strange trouble opening a bank account for the same bank that gave me the loan. The original door greeter person told me I couldnāt open an account, and their supervisor originally affirmed it, but then I had the guy who already got my loan application approved on the phone to tell them they were insane. Later they apologized even though I wasnāt bitter or angry and I just wanted to make sure the account was opened and connected to draft mortgage payments. The people who helped me open the account were really helpful, and truly did need to struggle through a type of case they probably rarely deal with. They had a giant manual of SOPs they had to refer to, and had to ask several other departments and managers questions. Be prepared to spend some time on this process. I suppose if you apply with help from a spouse who is a local citizen, maybe this is all much simpler in some ways.
The guy I worked with to get the loan was awesome. If you need a reference, let me know and I can put you in touch. I wonāt benefit in any way, but he was really great so Iād like to help him wherever possible. Iām not sure if he can work with other languages, but you could ask or pair up with someone who can help with communication.
Note that for the loan approval, the call they give you to ask questions during the application is in Chinese and you need to answer in Chinese, I believe.
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We bought it just as they were finishing.
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@Neuromancer @Wai
Glad to hear some others were able to get the house in both their names.
We even talked to a few banks with the same result. Hopefully others will not have the same experience as me
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I would be very interested to hear if a foreigner only couple or single person has ever successfully gotten a mortgage in Taiwan without a guarantor.
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Yes, I know several non-taiwanese who own one or more properties with mortgages on them.
Mortgages for foreigners seem to be a bit like credit cards for foreigners, there is a mistaken belief they are hard to come by.
I went to HSBC to open a bank account the other week, and applied for a credit card the same time and they had no issue with my getting a credit card as well. I walked out from there within 25 minutes with all the paper work done, and the cards arrived in the mail a week or so later.
ah sweet times when you could buy a home for 5 mil
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Wow, did you not have to put a large deposit down?
I went to HSBC at least twice and was told that to even open an international account there you need to deposit 100,000 USD. At the time I was looking at investment/retirement savings
Thatās funny, they gave you a huge loan and then were telling you you canāt open a bank account.
Shit service, shit training , shit professionalism.
I had a similar situation in getting a personal loan here. In the end just one bank offered me one and I had a local guarantor . No collateral. 2.99% .
For loans in general they basically break down as to if you have collateral or not . They prefer Taiwan property owned by Taiwanese as collateral (itās easy for them to rate the value). The reason why you didnāt get lowest rate is probably due to collateral ?
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I opened an account there about 6 'years ago. They really discouraged me from actually opening the account. They seem to only want very high value clients and ANZ bank also tried to get me to leave. If you insist you want the account they will do it.
As far as mortgages most banks I do business with said it wouldnt be an issue, only hillbilly Taichung bank told me absolute not for foreigners. All else were willing to let me try to apply. However I have credit cards with those same banks for years so I bet that helps when I asked.
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Thanks for sharing! you made some good points that I had not thought to look out for.
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I should clarify: I did inherit land in Taiwan previously under my name and I still have it. This could have made a difference, but the interesting thing is the bank mortgage salespeople all said they didnāt care about it and none wanted to see the proof of ownership, so I originally didnāt present it. All of them assumed that with my work income, it shouldnāt be needed. After having issues, I decided to just include it in my last application which was successful. I actually got approved for a 50% mortgage without including the land info originally and not being able to pick up the call for the loan managerās call to ask questions. I totally botched it, but still got some form of loan. To be honest, with interest rates this low, I think the banks here truly want to sell mortgages fast and at volume, so itās possible they donāt care about collateral if you can show other things (or they want local collateral as proof you wonāt flee the country).
I really think the salespeople oftentimes donāt know how the evaluation process works. Especially for uncommon cases. In other words, yes, it turns out salespeople are full of --it everywhere you go around the world (apologies to salespeople, Iām 90% kidding).
For opening the basic bank account, the service could have been better, but Iām a statistically unusual person here and I went to a branch that probably has literally never dealt with a case like mine before. Also, the department that does loans in the bank is separate from general banking, and the loan people donāt operate in a customer-facing office. So basically youāre walking into a random bank branch and telling them things that they have little understanding about and theyāre thinking āoh god why our branch how the heck am I going to make this work I had so much stuff I had to get done today.ā I can rant for days about prejudice everywhere in the world, but in this case I think itās slightly more complicated. There are certainly much clearer cases of prejudice to be found in the world compared to this. Anyway Iāve never had someone apologize to me like that ā I was shocked and thought they came to ask me for some additional required document at first. An honest apology can make a big difference to me.
Based on my experience, my feeling is that the most important aspects are:
- you have enough for a down payment
- you have a stable income high enough for the monthly payments and other living expenses
- you have been in the country for a long time and ideally have a long-term visa without an expiration period (in my case I probably got past this by showing I have family history and land ties here and a local passport)
- you can understand and sign paperwork in Chinese and reply to phone questions in Chinese/Taiwanese (Iām assuming this part ā maybe some can do English)
If the above are not possible to satisfy, bringing in a guarantor who is a direct relative (including spouse) and a local citizen of Taiwan and who themselves can satisfy the above can help you meet the requirements.
So, I would recommend not thinking about it as āitās easy/hard/impossible for foreigners to get a mortgageā as this may be too simplified. Rather, I suggest thinking of this scenario as: there is generally no law against a mortgage for a personal home for a foreign buyer in most cases, and the degree of difficulty will mostly depend on the factors I listed above (and possibly others I may have overlooked, but I spent months on this) because the banks need to do risk analysis before approving the financial commitment from their side.
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