One thing to consider in Taiwan that many foreigners overlook is the real difficulty of renting property after age 65 due to the “ghost factor.”
Just one percent of Taiwan’s landlords accept a single senior citizen as their tenant, according to a recently released survey by the Tsuei Ma Ma Foundation for Housing and Social Service, a Taipei-based non-governmental organisation. Respondents cited their fear of “emergencies” when explaining why they would refuse over-65-year-old tenants. . . . The ordeal of 82-year-old Mr Muchi is a case in point. For five years, Muchi has in vain tried to find a place to rent – even though he has a monthly income of 14,000 Taiwanese dollars ($460). Muchi also has health insurance and is eligible for some 6,000 Taiwanese dollars ($197) in municipal rental subsidy. That amount alone nearly suffices for a small rental room in the cheaper areas of Taipei.
“I had to live in my car until October last year, when the people from Hondao [senior citizen NGO] found me a place for 8,000 dollars [$263], of which they shoulder 3,000 [$99],” Muchi told Al Jazeera. “Without Hondao, I would surely still be living in the car.”
I’m far from that age, but in general my belief is that if you have enough money, they will rent to you
a second strategy is to find a Christian landlord , they tend to believe less in ghosts.
I used to live one alley away from a cemetery in Muzha, most of the neighbors were Christians and one of them told me that traditional Chinese dont like the neighborhood because of the cemetery, but the Christians dont fear ghosts as much.
There has to be a way to white lie your way out of it, with friends or relatives.
I mean for one thing don’t rent just a room, rent an entire floor. Outside of Taipei they should be around 10,000 or less anyways. Less reason for landlords to think you’re an old codger living alone. I don’t know about foreigners however. It’s definitely a worry once I reach that age too…
It is also possible to invoke white man privilege in this case. I think that a white ghost will only increase the property’s value, will make it more international, perhaps even turn it to a mini-tourist attraction like the Grand Hyatt in Taipei.
This whole thread appears to be fully derailed, but I can’t believe Taiwanese care that much about ghosts. Seems more like the landlords are just ageist. In the US, I don’t really think people care at all. Certainly doesn’t drive down property values. The house across from my parents had a dead body in it for nearly a week. The people who had been living there were a bit crazy, and I don’t know if they dead body had anything to do with it, but they moved shortly after that incident. Within a few weeks someone had bought the place and moved in. From Zillow I can see the house went for the same price as other homes in the neighborhood, which surprises me only because there were like 6 adults living in the house who all chain smoked, which means the new owners must either also be big smokers or would have spent (tens of?) thousands to replace the carpeting, curtains, whole walls probably…
I agree about Christian landlords. Most Christians I know here firmly believe that Jesus is the only ghost and therefore there’s no need to fear any other.
It’s Taiwan society. People don’t want to buy a house where someone died in it. In the West people have no such superstition. But in Taiwan it affects property value enough that you can actually be charged and convicted of fraud if you fail to disclose the incident to a buyer when selling.
I don’t think that’s completely true. Incidentally, I remember going to see a room in a small but pretty nice flatshare in the UK years ago with my girlfriend at the time. A day or two after the first viewing with the other tenant (friendly young guy, in his early twenties IIRC), when she’d decided to take the room, the rental agent stopped returning the calls and was evasive about what had happened – it turned out that the guy we’d met had killed himself in the apartment so they were still trying to sort that out. (It all seemed a bit odd/spontaneous – he’d left his work clothes and bus pass for the next day folded on the chair then apparently hung himself and/or tried to slit his wrists, from what we could gather.)
She took the room in the end, but didn’t last more than several weeks before moving out (after a couple of late-night phone calls asking if she could stay with me instead because she’d heard some noise or was uncomfortable staying there). Anyway, I don’t think this is a non-issue in Western countries.
