I just returned to Taipei. I’ve been looking for apartments. I thought if i upped my budget this time, the quality of apartments would improve. I’ve been looking at places between 20,000 and 30,000 ntd a month (which is really expensive). I’m shocked just how much of a state of disrepair these apartments are. Things are broken, the landlord didn’t clean after the last Tennants, chipped paint, ECT…
Why don’t landlords in Taipei/New Taipei take any pride or effort in their apartments? Don’t they feel embarrassed showing their units off in such a state? I can understand when it’s cheap slums around 10,000. But at 25,000 I really expected the unit not to be in such poor shape.
Why should they? They bought the place to appreciate in value over time. The rent is just pocket change for most of them. And potential buyers will do a complete renovation anyway after buying.
Many don’t even check the house condition mostly they don’t want to invest any further money into the house. So you have to be careful about the contracts including stuff like a functioning aircon, that’s a big one !.Taipei metro area is full of ancient housing stock , that is the biggest problem .
.Hey as far as renting goes it’s still very easy here compared to many countries , just got to roll with the bad parts.
this has puzzled me a lot too. and i thought of several possible explanations:
They dont care, and wait for the next sucker to come and rent.
its an issue of structural safety - if they clean, the dirt that holds the place together will be damaged and the apartment will collapse.
its psychological - they are emotionally attached to the ugly kitchen they have there, it brings back memories of A-Ma’s cooking… they feel if they let go of the 45 year old layer of grease they are letting go of their childhood, admitting that they have grown up
There is a ground floor apartment in a gong yu near me, among the sea of fugly four storey concrete rotting gong yus in my neighbourhood, that is actually getting a proper renovation. Like as in, for instance, they are fitting out a little mini courtyard at the back. They have ripped out all the bars, and replaced with big open windows that let light in. The windows aren’t the standard Taiwan issue frames with frosted glass, but large surface area, possibly safety glass (attention Taiwan - you don’t need to tape up windows in a typhoon if you actually use the right glass - refer Japan if are you curious) with black frames. The interior is not the standard issue Taiwan lino, but a false floor with timber, and the kitchen looks small but very open and modern. And most importantly, they haven’t put up that green plastic awning that a lot of gong yus here have jutting off their balcony-cage-thingo. In fact I’ve seen apartments here rip out what looks like a cracked 40 year old green plastic awning on their back cage, and replace it with what looks like the exact same ugly awning, in all its horrific tasteless ugliness, just refusing to acknowledge that ugliness by replacing it, is there anything more obnoxious? Just with a brighter green, presumably made by the same company.
Anyway the apartment is getting an astonishing amount of attention from locals. Every man and his dog, literally, is stopping by and peering in there. It is like some sort of alien landing, the community is abuzz. No bars and frosted glass, what is this sorcery?
I agree. in general i think that gong yus are actually better in terms of space and room size compared to the modern buildings. Similar to you, I saw 2 renovated apartments in my neighbourhood that were amazing inside, but the building on the outside looks like shit.
its relatively so easy to give the gongyus a face lift - clean the outside, remove the ugly bars, change (or at least clean) the ugly silver doors and give the stairwell a good paint job and change the railings.
a friend of mine lives in Vienna in what is basically a Gongyu - building built from blocks in the 50s after the war, no elevator, facing the street, nothing special. But the outside has warm colors, no bars, large windows, it looks completely different.
Another weird thing is that several apartments i went to were newly built. The lobbies looked stunning, modern, and well looked after. Then I get to the actual apartment and it’s in shambles and filthy. I used to look at those fancy type of highrises and wonder how great the apartments must be. Now I know that they’re also ugly inside, just more expensive. I guess I’ll just have to settle on one and spend days cleaning it. So now my standards are more likely, is it at least safe to live in
This can also happen the different way round: when looking at my last apartment in neihu, I almost didn’t even want to go up the elevator. So crappy, run down, ugly, dirty was the outside and ground floor. But then, lo and behold - the apartment was very nicely decorated, clean, modern.
ABC owner though, so probably not so local.
(And a player. The divorce papers from his wife ended up in my mailbox )
There was a similar topic to this a month or so ago, and I personally have met some of these landlords.
cheap as turd.
You aren’t their family, so they don’t give a hoot, this is not their main house or Childs house.
actually housing in Taiwan overall is sad state of affairs, these people generally have a lot of money stashed up to completely renovate their rental property, but why would they? they just want MAXIMUM return with 0 investment.
These landlords also usually have another brand new top of the line apartment just built that they purchased and refuse to rent it to anybody thus leaving it empty to collect cobwebs. Don’t want the value to decrease a dime. Thus leaving everybody else with the crapshoots that clearly need to be renovated.
Ah so it’s a matter of desperation? People have to live somewhere and since so many landlords are this way, people just give in and rent these disgusting places? Something like that?
I guess that means there needs to be some sort of increased regulation on rentals. I thought i saw something about a recent bill actually?
I was told that most politicians also own multiple properties. And in addition, with the high home ownership rate in Taiwan, laws protecting renters might not be seen as positive from the majority of the population. It’s their property - so why should the government tell them what they need to do with it?
It’s even more tragic with the totally unsafe buildings and illegal rooftop additions that some local governments tried to crack down. Everyone complained: Landlords, but also the tenants living in these buildings - now they didn’t have a cheap place to live anymore.
So I wouldn’t expect the situation to improve any time soon - people here seem to have internalized that rentals can never be nice and one has to own the home to make it truly their home.
Apart from fire safety, I think regulation is not the answer. Despite my personal difficulties as a renter, I believe the market is efficient, renters and landlords find a common ground and negotiate a price that is acceptable for both sides.
if you can’t find a place in your price range, you can compromise on your convenience and move to another neighborhood, if the land lord can’t find a tenant, they lower the rent…
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