Pictures and Prices

A recent home seller’s thumbnail pictures and asking price gave everyone a ‘ballpark’ idea of what that amount of money would buy. While nothing takes the place of an on-site inspection and all sorts of situations affect the final costs, it seems such pictures would be a helpful addition to this forum. Is there any way to do this without it becoming a commercial advertising site? Could it be limited to those who have made a real estate purchase and are willing to show others? Is there already such a site?

I think you are talking about my signature. Anyway, if you want to know more, visit real estate websites like HsinYi, YungChing, Rebar or others, or better yet go to their offices and go see some houses. You got to look at the location too. I just bought a house in TienMu that is slightly larger and needs to be totally redone (NT$3 million min. worth of work to be done) and the price I paid was almost 3 times the selling price of the house in my signature. Total price after paying for the house and all of the updated interior work will be getting close to US$900,000. The reason for the huge price difference, the location. The new place is in TienMu. By the way, this new place is in a building that is about 20 years old. Yikes huh! The place in my sig is less than 10 years old. Age makes a difference as most Taiwanese do not want to live in an older building. Anyway, if you saw pictures of my new place you would have a distorted view of what you can get for your money. It is not only about money, location is important. If you want a nicer place for your money, live further out of the city or not even in Taipei, go south for really cheap prices.

Thanks, Josh.
Yes, your thumbnails were great, though my post is not about selling an existing home nor about checking real estate office sites and their offerings. I believe there might be a few on this forum who would simply like to see what a certain amount of money might buy in a certain location. I agree that pictures can be deceptive. And as I wrote, when the time comes to buy, nothing replaces doing due diligence and there are many other factors involved in the final price.
I still think pictures and prices would be a real help and could be used to show rental as well as owned homes. I do realize the effort involved for others to do this, so I doubt this will happen.

I doubt there are many people here on forumosa that actually buy a house/apartment. If you just want to get an idea walk along the street and look into the window of real estate agents, they often display pictures with prices and basic information about the property. Or watch TV channel 80.

Mucha. 39 pings. 3 bedroom 6th floor apartment. 5 years old. Constructed and managed by the Evergreen Group. Close to MRT, university, bus stops. Quiet street. Excellent maintainance of building (definitely not the norm).

A neighbour on our floor just sold for 16 million NT. Still bloody overpriced for what you get, but in Taipei City this is the norm.