Cause I live here and am invested in this country but am not so enthused by making others rich at my expense.
Well… You have to spend money on a place you live right? Why should that line the pockets of someone on their third or fourth home? Depending on how you play your cards, you could even purchase a home where the rental costs meet or approach the monthly mortgage costs, enabling the kind of flexibility you described in your post. This is my case, the mortgage payments not only equal what I am paying right now, but also equal the rent of the tenant still inside the place.
Should I ever let’s say…need to move to Tainan for work, I’m set there in two ways, one, the banks will be more familiar with me and my amazing mortgage record, letting me buy another, but two, I can rent the thing out and either rent or buy in another part of Taiwan.
I don’t need to own a property because it’s in my culture, although it’s very much in my culture to own properties in many ways like the Taiwanese. I think us Italians practically invented it. I’m not being serious. But I would like a base in Asia that isn’t going to be a money sink into someone else’s pockets. Having one means that I can leave temporarily for business opportunities and not come back to short terms rentals as well without having to always go back to the motherland and also have access to my stuff.
It’s not a replacement for my investments. I know lotsa people say you can rent and then use the socalled savings in an investment, but I’d only see that if I was buying something significantly more expensive as this is fine for my needs while providing little difference to my budget as well as extra advantages for me.
This isn’t for everyone, but at this point, I just wanna pay for something that’s mine. Even if moving away means that I sell the thing, get some money back and then use that money to buy something else. We’re building the @marco empire.
Thank you! Feel free to ask more questions if you want.
That’s why I am staying in Danshui. Last place where it’s pretty OK and not likely to be affected too much if Taipei crashes, but then if Taipei crashes, I will be in there like a hawk.
I really like Danshui was first place I visited in Taiwan 6-7 years ago (getting old memories fading).
Landed In Taoyuan nighttime taxi to hotel in YongHe, next morning go into Dingxi station look at the map, decided on Danshui and had a very nice day.
Made a good impression of Taiwan to me.
I’d be happy to live or buy there, MRT to Taipei is not that long.
Well done buying in Taiwan
Yes, A lot of the slog is from Danshui’s interior and its disorganised bus system.
If you can get something closer to the MRT lines, it’s smooth sailing to Taipei Main Station.
I certainly would love to live by TPE Main and take the late buses back from Kaohsiung, show up at 3AM and walk over to my house and pass out but alas… Taipei’s supply of housing, not just affordable housing near MRT stations is really low. I fought tooth and nail to find a good-ish deal near an MRT station.
Would your monthly mortgage payment be much higher than 13000 per month? That is one of the reasons that is holding me back from wanting to buy vs rent. Granted I got a great deal on my rent, but if I was to buy in the same building that I am living in, my mortgage would be more than 3x what I am renting for. At what I’m currently paying, it would take me 70 years before I “own” the place. I probably won’t be around by that time. People always talk about the potential of making a profit if the place goes up. My thought is why couldn’t people just take that extra 2x that they would have to pay from renting vs buying and invest that? As other people have pointed out in investment threads. Getting over 10% return on investment isn’t that uncommon.
I am not sure. I personally never heard about limitations regarding to house ownership for foreigners. I know we can’t purchase land at all but that’s a different topic.
I don’t think there’s a single answer when talking renting vs buying, it really depends on what kind of deal you can find. Although, in my personal experience, I haven’t found a good deal to buy in Taiwan yet.
Best course of action is to evaluate all the details before deciding. That includes interest rate, cost of opportunity, expected valuation, inflation, etc.
I find this NY Times tool very helpful and with some tweaks you can apply it to Taiwanese market:
yes, I did a similar calculation and got similar results.
if I want to buy an apartment similar to the one I’m renting the mortgage will be 3 times more than our monthly rent.
if I want to replace rent payments with mortgage payments for same type of apartment I would need to put 70% of the money and take a mortgage only on the remaining 30%·
That was also my conclusion in the opportunities I’ve seen.
However, it seems @Marco found a good deal, where the mortgage and rent are about the same. If so, it makes sense to buy it.
If you are willing to live outside of Taipei, it’s easy. For instance, I have a big family, and renting a six bedroom apartment in Taipei was about 40K/mo. I bought some houses outside of Taipei and the combined mortgage payment is less than rent in Taipei, and I rent half of them out, which covers the mortgage payments. My daily commute was a lot longer for a few years, but now it isn’t, so it’s all win/win now. I may end up renting in Taipei for a few years when my youngest kids get older so that they can attend better schools though.
