As everyone knows, there is a lot of news where Taiwan is allowing mainland investment in businesses, as well as it’s stock market. And when I was living in Kaohsiung, there was boatloads of mainland tourists always visiting daily.
Then there was talk of allowing mainland students to come to Taiwan.
Now they have come up with a slogan for encouraging baby production :discodance: so obviously they are concerned about the future tax base.
So in recent threads about purchase of property, a few posters have speculated that the Taiwanese government will allow PRC citizens to own property and stay in Taiwan.
What is the general opinion of everyone? Would the Taiwanese be accepting of this, or would this be something that the government would back down from due to revolt?
I am asking as I am still strongly considering buying a condo in Kaohsiung or Taizhong because their price points seem ok, but a lot of posters have suggested overpricing due to oversupply. However, I see a good opportunity to make $, if the government does indeed allow China’s citizens to invest in property.
They are already able to invest in Taiwan property and they do through shell companies, but mostly for commercial property.
The Taiwan bubble is a side part of the China bubble…don’t think there are hordes of Chinese wanting to invest in Taiwan. They’d rather buy houses in Australia or Canada or HK or Singapore to get residency there. Taichung is probably a good investment long-term as it’s a city that’s improving slowly as is Kaoshiung and not too expensive like Taipei like you said. You have to look at access to cheap credit, many of the luxury apartments are bought by overseas Taiwanese using cheap loans from Chinese banks.
Politically it won’t wash for Chinese to buy property and get residence in Taiwan, not for years at least, they don’t really want to live in Taiwan anyway!
If you want to buy an apt in those cities just look for something that you’d like to live in, that’s my advice. It will probably appreciate over time if in a good location (not on top of a hill or in the boondocks or part of a megacomplex). Anything near the MRT systems or city parks is definitely a good bet.
Thanks for replying.
actually, where I want to buy in KHH has future plans for a mrt so it could be a solid investment, although no one uses the MRT in kaohsiung. When I was in Taipei visiting, I took the MRT as it was convenient due to all the vehicles, but Kaohsiung doesnt have this problem so why take transit when a scooter is more convenient. I wouldnt be suprised if they didnt shut down the mrt in a few more years.
Im pretty sure the art gallery of KHH is a good idea, but you know the human mind with the potential of buyers remorse running through. I get this way even when I buy a car
[quote=“dan2006”]Thanks for replying.
actually, where I want to buy in KHH has future plans for a MRT so it could be a solid investment, although no one uses the MRT in kaohsiung. When I was in Taipei visiting, I took the MRT as it was convenient due to all the vehicles, but Kaohsiung doesnt have this problem so why take transit when a scooter is more convenient. I wouldnt be suprised if they didnt shut down the MRT in a few more years.
Im pretty sure the art gallery of KHH is a good idea, but you know the human mind with the potential of buyers remorse running through. I get this way even when I buy a car [/quote]
The MRT corporation in Kaohsiung is going to develop shopping malls and office complexes on top of teh stations and along the line like here in Taipei. This is supposed to spark more usage, hopefully. I’d wait and see how it goes. And if they develop feeder buses better, it’ll help a lot. Then it’ll be a better investment.
Well, the problem with people in the PRC is that their money is not freely convertible. So many in China of them have loads of money, they’re not going to be able to quickly change their RMB to NT$ quickly anytime soon.
I’m not saying that conversion is impossible, but for the vast majority it is extremely difficult. You’re not likely to see a huge influx of hot money coming into Taiwan from PRC anytime soon.
To GuyinTaiwan, I dont like speculation either. It is not really my goal to make a lot of money, as I actually want to live in the place that I purchase.
Right now, a nice place is going for about $100,000 canadian (roughly the same USD) but a lot of oversupply so the last thing I want to see is them offering it for $50,000.
[quote=“greenmark”]Well, the problem with people in the PRC is that their money is not freely convertible. So many in China of them have loads of money, they’re not going to be able to quickly change their RMB to NT$ quickly anytime soon.
I’m not saying that conversion is impossible, but for the vast majority it is extremely difficult. You’re not likely to see a huge influx of hot money coming into Taiwan from PRC anytime soon.[/quote]
Interesting point. I guess China doesnt want to make it to easy to convert money, until Taiwan makes concessions to them, which probably wont happen in a short period of time.
[quote=“Icon”][quote=“dan2006”]Thanks for replying.
actually, where I want to buy in KHH has future plans for a MRT so it could be a solid investment, although no one uses the MRT in kaohsiung. When I was in Taipei visiting, I took the MRT as it was convenient due to all the vehicles, but Kaohsiung doesnt have this problem so why take transit when a scooter is more convenient. I wouldnt be suprised if they didnt shut down the MRT in a few more years.
Im pretty sure the art gallery of KHH is a good idea, but you know the human mind with the potential of buyers remorse running through. I get this way even when I buy a car [/quote]
The MRT corporation in Kaohsiung is going to develop shopping malls and office complexes on top of teh stations and along the line like here in Taipei. This is supposed to spark more usage, hopefully. I’d wait and see how it goes. And if they develop feeder buses better, it’ll help a lot. Then it’ll be a better investment.[/quote]
Actually, if they did that, Im sure there would be a lot more usage. Right now the KHH line isnt the most convenient, so there is no incentive to leave the scooter at home.
[quote=“dan2006”]To GuyinTaiwan, I don’t like speculation either. It is not really my goal to make a lot of money, as I actually want to live in the place that I purchase.
Right now, a nice place is going for about $100,000 Canadian (roughly the same USD) but a lot of oversupply so the last thing I want to see is them offering it for $50,000. [/quote]
I’m certainly no expert on home ownership, having only ever bought and sold one house. However, my feelings about investing in real estate are that I don’t like it for a whole lot of reasons. Being an extremely illiquid asset and being such a huge investment, you’re particularly exposed to things quite out of your hands, especially legislative risks; there are often high frictional costs, though I’m not sure how significant they are in Taiwan; you have maintanence and insurance; you have the possibility of vacancy or bad tenants. That’s not to say that people can’t, and don’t, make money on real estate, but I think they either do a lot of legwork or they’re lucky (and many aren’t lucky).
The only reason I would ever buy property would be as a home, and even then, only if it would save me a decent amount on rent in order to offset really being tied down and having a lot of my net worth tied down. I would not go into it considering it any real kind of investment. It strikes me that everyone considers himself an expert on buying a house despite buying perhaps no more than four or five in a lifetime (and often considerably fewer) and looking at perhaps six to ten times that number. This despite coming up against professionals who have thousands more hours of dealing with the industry and are privy to all sorts of knowledge the average person isn’t even aware of. I can’t think of any other activity in life that people would claim expertise in despite being so amateurish. They go into a place, switch a few lights on, check there’s no peeling paint, and voila, think to themselves, “Yeah, this is such a sure thing compared to the stock market. I have no knowledge of how to pick stocks and it would be pure speculation to do so!” It’s akin to saying that because I’ve flown on a few dozen aeroplanes in my life, that I should walk onto a plane, unflip a few tray tables and check that a couple of the seats have seatbelts and then ask to fly the thing. Yikes! Would people drop a few hundred grand on a race horse simply because they’d seen someone else ride it and confirmed that it did, indeed, have four legs? How about a yacht because they’d had a turn at the wheel out in the harbour during clear skies for five minutes one afternoon?
