Realistically, can most foreigners afford to buy homes in Taiwan and how?

My wife and I could afford to buy in Taipei, however what Brentgolf said. We have a bursting bubble and the fundamentals are against it. Rather rent 5 more years, bank the difference between the mortgage payments and the rent and enter at a much lower level with a bigger downpayment.

They were saying it was going to go down in Canada for years, the income was not increasing, interest rates would rise, etc, but I waited and now I’m priced out of the market in Toronto if I wanted to buy.

4 years ago I wanted to get something in Kaohsiung but people kept saying it was going to go down so I waited… I’m effectively priced out again.

I have learned that if a house is something you want, don’t try to time the market, but buy it if you want it to live in and not to speculate.

I agree in theory with you BrentGolf but the market is usually stupid and it’s stupidity will likely outlast my lifetime it seems. Taiwan is an island and the island mentality defies all fundamentals.

I rent an apartment whose current “market value” in the neighborhood I live in is 60,000,000NT. My rent is 50,000. The landlord could probably get 80,000 but he doesn’t need the money and he values a tenant who won’t trash his place. There’s no way I’d pay $2,000,000 U.S. for this concrete box though, partcularly with all the market fundamentals pointing downward.

Watching market fundamentals is the key because when they’re pointed downward, prices do go down. Just look at Japan or some cities in the U.S. or China where prices are dropping.

If I could afford a home in Taiwan I would probably take the money and buy me a bigger house plus yard in other country. The houses and apartments in Taiwan are are so tiny and overpriced anyway for a land plagued by pollution, bad politics, earthquakes, bad educational system, etc.

[quote=“Winston Smith”]I rent an apartment whose current “market value” in the neighborhood I live in is 60,000,000NT. My rent is 50,000. The landlord could probably get 80,000 but he doesn’t need the money and he values a tenant who won’t trash his place. There’s no way I’d pay $2,000,000 U.S. for this concrete box though, partcularly with all the market fundamentals pointing downward.

Watching market fundamentals is the key because when they’re pointed downward, prices do go down. Just look at Japan or some cities in the U.S. or China where prices are dropping.[/quote]

Even at 80k the return would be miserable on a 60M house…

Buying now in Taipei is a risky move, especially when mortgage rate are not fixed.

But if you have the cash and plan to live in, I would still recommend to buy, instead of waiting another 10years for an hypothetical crash. If you don’t mind living in a ugly gongyu in a less desirable area of taipei, I’m sure a couple earning 120k monthly can afford it. So it still affordable for the average english teacher.

Saving up a deposit in the first place
would be a massive challenge for an English teacher.
After that its doable if you purchase far out in Taipei county or Taoyuan but even there would be tough, jobs on average don’t pay much for teachers or locals.
If we look around the world it’s a similar situation in many places, housing costs have got out of control.

[quote=“Markova”][quote=“Winston Smith”]I rent an apartment whose current “market value” in the neighborhood I live in is 60,000,000NT. My rent is 50,000. The landlord could probably get 80,000 but he doesn’t need the money and he values a tenant who won’t trash his place. There’s no way I’d pay $2,000,000 U.S. for this concrete box though, partcularly with all the market fundamentals pointing downward.

Watching market fundamentals is the key because when they’re pointed downward, prices do go down. Just look at Japan or some cities in the U.S. or China where prices are dropping.[/quote]

Even at 80k the return would be miserable on a 60M house…

Buying now in Taipei is a risky move, especially when mortgage rate are not fixed.

But if you have the cash and plan to live in, I would still recommend to buy, instead of waiting another 10years for an hypothetical crash. If you don’t mind living in a ugly gongyu in a less desirable area of taipei, I’m sure a couple earning 120k monthly can afford it. So it still affordable for the average english teacher.[/quote]

If someone is planning on living here long-term, I’d say rent for now, and then buy something (if you want) outside of Taipei, in a place where you can buy the land and get the building done to your specifications. It’s the only way I can see in which you get a good value for your money.

I have discussed the issue with my wife a couple of times, and the argument that finally convinced her is that if we could afford to buy an apartment or flat in the area that she and her family like (Da-An), we could just grab the money, go back to Spain, buy an apartment twice the size in a good place (say, some of the best neighbourhoods in Barcelona), and the both of us could retire with the “spare change”. Prices in Taipei downtown are ludicrous.

Maybe I’m just a really special case and don’t get it…

The rent to value of property % in Taiwan is the lowest in the world - Tells you properties are overpriced or rents are underpriced.

Most Taiwan property looks like it was shat out of a gigantic faulty concrete blender - if I want to own a house, I’d want to be proud of what I have and spruce it up accordingly. Here, houses 5-10 years after building look 30 years old.

Owning property is hardcore maintenance and costly. Constantly depletes your cash flow.

Owning property ties you down to a location and thus career - less freedom.

Owning property ties you down mortgage payments - if a recession (usually every 4-5 years, screws your job, there goes your dream concrete cage.

I don’t get why anyone would want to buy up a box here unless they were hoping to sell it on to a greater fool at a higher price down the line.

[quote=“headhonchoII”]
If we look around the world it’s a similar situation in many places, housing costs have got out of control.[/quote]

Indeed. In the UK, house prices bubbled up until 2008, when they were sharply deflated by the financial crisis and economic recession. But since then, even though the economy has largely remained in the doldrums, with average incomes having fallen and jobs being hard to come by, prices have already climbed back up and, according to the last BBC report I read about the market, have surpassed pre-crisis highs in many areas of the country.

I bought my current home in Linkou on a bit of a mad impulse last year. I’d already sold my previous house for 15 million NTD a couple of months earlier, and was renting with the intention of either waiting for that big market correction before buying back in, or else buying something smaller and cheaper (ideally for half or less of what I’d sold for) while waiting to upgrade after the market correction. Unfortunately, my sister-in-law told us that one of the houses in her community was available for sale at a quite reasonable asking price. I’d always liked the houses in their community, so I went to take a look at it.

As soon as I got inside and started to look over it, I really wanted to buy it. If I was to get it, I’d need to act quickly, because the next-door-neighbour had already made an offer for it, wanting it for his parents. The owner-occupier (a widow) had accepted his offer, taken a deposit, and signed a piece of paper agreeing to pay him half a million if she didn’t go through with the sale. She’d then got upset because he was pushing her to complete the sale and move out much sooner than she was ready for, and relations between them had already degenerated into nasty argument and aggression. She really wanted to sell to someone else rather than him, but didn’t want to lose money by doing so; therefore, if I wanted to buy, I’d have to pay substantially more than the neighbour’s offer, covering the half million penalty (which a lawyer had advised her she would be obliged to pay if the matter went to court) plus a bit more. That raised the price significantly above what my sis-in-law had said she thought I’d be able to get it for, and beyond the maximum that I could reasonably afford to pay. But because I’d really taken to the house, had immediately filled my head with images of how pleasant it would be to live in it, and knew how nice it would be for my wife and daughter to live so close to the sis-in-law and her family; and because I’d been hating my recent experience of renting from a shitty landlord and was eager to live under my own roof again, I’d already all but made up my mind to go ahead and buy it. I thought about it and discussed it with the wife for a day or so, went back for another look, then made an offer that, after a wee bit of haggling, the widow accepted. I paid 21.5 million, and with added expenditures for installing a new kitchen plus taxes, fees and so on, my total cost was near to 22 million.

At the time, I didn’t consider that too unreasonable, even though it was a very heavy and difficult cost for me to meet, because I expected to be very happy living in it, and because it seemed a good bit lower than the prices generally being asked in Linkou for similar houses (usually advertised for around 30 million). However, since I moved in last October, I’ve been wracked with misgivings about the wisdom of my purchase. Although it’s a nice enough house by Taiwanese standards, it’s still just a lousy semi-detached concrete box with miniscule gardens at front and back, and is dreadfully inferior compared to what I could buy with the same amount of money in much better environments in many other countries. I also fear that prices are going to fall very heavily in the near future, and that the longer I live in it, the more I’m likely to lose when I eventually sell it. And although I’m very satisfied with the interior of the house, I’m not at all happy with the neighbours or neighbourhood. The community has turned out to be nowhere near as nice as it had previously seemed on my regular visits to the sis-in-law, and nowhere near as pleasant to live in as they had represented it.

Consequently, I’ve already decided to sell if I can get anywhere near close enough to what I paid for it, and have engaged real estate agents to try to find a buyer. However, I’m highly pessimistic about the chances of selling, since the market for houses like this in Linkou has already shrunk substantially this year. It appears that I was unlucky enough to buy at the worst possible time. Small units close to the soon-to-open MRT station are still selling fairly well, but bigger places further from the station are no longer so much in demand. If I do manage to sell, I’ll go back to my previous plan of sitting on my cash and renting, or maybe buying a small pied-à-terre, while I wait for a big dip in prices. Otherwise, I’ll just have to make the best of living here while trying not to get too upset at the erosion of my life savings and my family’s financial security.

That’s really it in a nutshell. No foreigner I know plans to retire here in Taipei or New Taipei. With the benefit of hindsight, I see I didn’t go far enough and I should have done what a former co-worker did: Buy a 30 million apartment in Shilin seven years ago which he can now sell for over double that. That’s right, after seven years of doing nothing, he could now retire and move back to Kaoshiung and live comfortably, if that’s what he wanted. I agree the situation is different now than it was seven years ago, but again, that’s what they were saying seven years ago (I think about when that “a housing crash is imminent” thread started).

[quote=“cyberguppy”]Maybe I’m just a really special case and don’t get it…

The rent to value of property % in Taiwan is the lowest in the world - Tells you properties are overpriced or rents are underpriced.

Most Taiwan property looks like it was shat out of a gigantic faulty concrete blender - if I want to own a house, I’d want to be proud of what I have and spruce it up accordingly. Here, houses 5-10 years after building look 30 years old.

Owning property is hardcore maintenance and costly. Constantly depletes your cash flow.

Owning property ties you down to a location and thus career - less freedom.

Owning property ties you down mortgage payments - if a recession (usually every 4-5 years, screws your job, there goes your dream concrete cage.

I don’t get why anyone would want to buy up a box here unless they were hoping to sell it on to a greater fool at a higher price down the line.[/quote]

there are many that agree with you including myself. There are many that grew up with the expectation that owning your own home was part of a successful life. And they are willing to overlook the downsides of home ownership to maintain this goal.

I could own a shithole in Kaohsiung if I wanted. There is a huge supply of 3-4 story narrow and deep houses with awful floor plans and basic construction that must be cheap. We rented an entire house for 8K/mo (I subleased for awhile) and it was probably a fairly decent return compared most rent vs own metrics. But I prefer to live in a much nicer place that I have no chance of affording even if I was married with a 2nd income.

[quote=“Omniloquacious”][quote=“headhonchoII”]
If we look around the world it’s a similar situation in many places, housing costs have got out of control.[/quote]

Indeed. In the UK, house prices bubbled up until 2008, when they were sharply deflated by the financial crisis and economic recession. But since then, even though the economy has largely remained in the doldrums, with average incomes having fallen and jobs being hard to come by, prices have already climbed back up and, according to the last BBC report I read about the market, have surpassed pre-crisis highs in many areas of the country.

I bought my current home in Linkou on a bit of a mad impulse last year. I’d already sold my previous house for 15 million NTD a couple of months earlier, and was renting with the intention of either waiting for that big market correction before buying back in, or else buying something smaller and cheaper (ideally for half or less of what I’d sold for) while waiting to upgrade after the market correction. Unfortunately, my sister-in-law told us that one of the houses in her community was available for sale at a quite reasonable asking price. I’d always liked the houses in their community, so I went to take a look at it.

As soon as I got inside and started to look over it, I really wanted to buy it. If I was to get it, I’d need to act quickly, because the next-door-neighbour had already made an offer for it, wanting it for his parents. The owner-occupier (a widow) had accepted his offer, taken a deposit, and signed a piece of paper agreeing to pay him half a million if she didn’t go through with the sale. She’d then got upset because he was pushing her to complete the sale and move out much sooner than she was ready for, and relations between them had already degenerated into nasty argument and aggression. She really wanted to sell to someone else rather than him, but didn’t want to lose money by doing so; therefore, if I wanted to buy, I’d have to pay substantially more than the neighbour’s offer, covering the half million penalty (which a lawyer had advised her she would be obliged to pay if the matter went to court) plus a bit more. That raised the price significantly above what my sis-in-law had said she thought I’d be able to get it for, and beyond the maximum that I could reasonably afford to pay. But because I’d really taken to the house, had immediately filled my head with images of how pleasant it would be to live in it, and knew how nice it would be for my wife and daughter to live so close to the sis-in-law and her family; and because I’d been hating my recent experience of renting from a shitty landlord and was eager to live under my own roof again, I’d already all but made up my mind to go ahead and buy it. I thought about it and discussed it with the wife for a day or so, went back for another look, then made an offer that, after a wee bit of haggling, the widow accepted. I paid 21.5 million, and with added expenditures for installing a new kitchen plus taxes, fees and so on, my total cost was near to 22 million.

At the time, I didn’t consider that too unreasonable, even though it was a very heavy and difficult cost for me to meet, because I expected to be very happy living in it, and because it seemed a good bit lower than the prices generally being asked in Linkou for similar houses (usually advertised for around 30 million). However, since I moved in last October, I’ve been wracked with misgivings about the wisdom of my purchase. Although it’s a nice enough house by Taiwanese standards, it’s still just a lousy semi-detached concrete box with miniscule gardens at front and back, and is dreadfully inferior compared to what I could buy with the same amount of money in much better environments in many other countries. I also fear that prices are going to fall very heavily in the near future, and that the longer I live in it, the more I’m likely to lose when I eventually sell it. And although I’m very satisfied with the interior of the house, I’m not at all happy with the neighbours or neighbourhood. The community has turned out to be nowhere near as nice as it had previously seemed on my regular visits to the sis-in-law, and nowhere near as pleasant to live in as they had represented it.

Consequently, I’ve already decided to sell if I can get anywhere near close enough to what I paid for it, and have engaged real estate agents to try to find a buyer. However, I’m highly pessimistic about the chances of selling, since the market for houses like this in Linkou has already shrunk substantially this year. It appears that I was unlucky enough to buy at the worst possible time. Small units close to the soon-to-open MRT station are still selling fairly well, but bigger places further from the station are no longer so much in demand. If I do manage to sell, I’ll go back to my previous plan of sitting on my cash and renting, or maybe buying a small pied-à-terre, while I wait for a big dip in prices. Otherwise, I’ll just have to make the best of living here while trying not to get too upset at the erosion of my life savings and my family’s financial security.[/quote]

Omni, If you are caught in it, look at it this way:

You have as far as I can glean from your other posts ROC citizenship. This is where you will live, I suspect that this is where you will retire and perhaps even get buried.

If you can live with the place, then live in it, make it into a comfortable coat, you snugly slip into whenever you step in through the front door. Try to look at it as a place you are going to live in for the next 20 years at least.

If you look at it that way, then the purchase price is a sunk cost, and not to worry about. You just pay off, and by the time you move out, you might wind up doing so feet first, with the issue of what it’s worth being your daughters problem, you will not care.

And that’s part of the problem here. If you have a local spouse, owning a house becomes part of her expectations. Weaning her off wanting to do that at all costs takes time and patience.

My missus would like to buy now, and me and some Taiwanese friends spent some time on dissuading her, as sitting on the cash right now would make much more sense.

Omni says that the market in Linkou is drying up - the same is happening in Taipei, a real estate agent yesterday told me that she was happy because she does lots of rentals, the ones not doing rentals are hurting a lot now. Little turnover and large discounts. The speculative investors are getting squeezed out of the market, our landlady sold our place at a large discount as she was weeks away from foreclosure. She is not the only debt-fuelled speculator being forced to unload and that will crash the market, if worst comes to worst.

When I got married 8 years ago, I had like $500 in savings. We lived at my granny’s house for almost 2 years while we saved money. Luckily the missus made a shit ton more than I did and we were able to save about NT$1M a year. We put that as the down in a little 17 ping place in Yong He. Sold it when the baby was born 2 years later and made almost a mil. Plopped down 3M on a bigger place in Yong He. Lived there for 3 years. Sold that and made 2.5M. Plopped that down on an old Gong Yu in Taipei City. So, yes it’s possible, but only with the backing of the family for that initial $1M and very favorable market conditions.

New experience: I was walking on my way to work through Da’an this morning, along Heping Rd, when I was stopped by a red light in front of a real estate agency. With nothing else to do for 40-some seconds, I glanced over the ads, each of which had a big 降 (price drop) plastered on it. Without missing a beat, the young guy in a nice suit inside bolts out the door and asks me 需要什麼幫忙嗎? I told him I was just waiting for the light. :s

Today, I tucked my shirt into my pants for a change so I looked more professional than usual, but I was still wearing a backpack (not to mention the fact that it was only a block or two away from Shida) and I really don’t look like the type who can afford Taipei property. To me this is a sign that they are getting desperate.

New experience: I was walking on my way to work through Da’an this morning, along Heping Rd, when I was stopped by a red light in front of a real estate agency. With nothing else to do for 40-some seconds, I glanced over the ads, each of which had a big 降 (price drop) plastered on it. Without missing a beat, the young guy in a nice suit inside bolts out the door and asks me 需要什麼幫忙嗎? I told him I was just waiting for the light. :s

Today, I tucked my shirt into my pants for a change so I looked more professional than usual, but I was still wearing a backpack (not to mention the fact that it was only a block or two away from Shi-Da) and I really don’t look like the type who can afford Taipei property. To me this is a sign that they are getting desperate.[/quote]

It’s only starting. Save your money.

i do not stop in front of real estate shops any more, let me tell you.

This post hits the nail on the head for me. I tried and tried to persuade my wife not to sink all of our life savings into a property, but her own ideas (compounded by constant pressure from her parents) regarding home ownership were no match for this tiny foreigner who doesn’t know what he is talking about. If I didn’t agree to look at places with her she told me that she would buy a place by herself. :frowning:

Our situation

We ended up buying a place in July of this year in what was previously known as Kaohsiung County. It is approximatly 40 mins drive away from the Kaohsiung Arena (distance from the Kaohsiung Arena seems to be some kind of measuring stick down here). As we definatly had to buy a house, I tried to steer my wife towards something that would be less hassle for me. Hence - the location isn’t great but the price, size and condition of the house means that we won’t need to constantly move house if we ever have a family. Also, if we leave Taiwan we can just rent it out. I have already told my wife that this will be the only house I ever buy in Taiwan. I never want to go through the same hell again.

Financially we broke the bank for the downpayment. The in-laws also contributed (which I was very thankful for - however it was mostly their pushing that made my wife want to buy in the first place so I have mixed feelings about this) and we ended up paying around NT$6 million after taxes and all associated fees. The cost of redocorating will also need to be added onto that figure.

Bearing in mind that this is a 5 bedroom tou4tian1 with over 70 ping of floorspace and a double garage, that 6 million NT would easily have doubled had the house been located in central Kaohsiung. I have no idea what a similar sized property would cost in Taipei. The monthly mortgage repayments are around NT$15,000 which is manageable as both my wife and I work and she has said that she will keep working if we ever have a kid (I’m not reading too much into that).

However, I am also experiencing the same missgivings as Omniloquacious regarding the neighbours. When we bought the property everything seemed fine with the neighbours and we were told by the estate agent that the stray dogs that hang out in the communal underground basement would be gone by the time we moved in. Of course this didn’t happen, and it turns out that it is one of the neighbors and some local university students who are feeding and pampering these strays (never in their own house - always in the communal basement). :fume: 6 million couldn’t buy a lot of property in my part of the UK - but at least there wouldn’t be strays running into my garage and barking at me when I come home.

Sorry for being rude. What would happen if the interest part of the mortgage payments increased? It could well happen.NT$15k is cheap, I suggest that you save for a period of higher payments, if in any way possible.

.[/quote]However, I am also experiencing the same missgivings as Omniloquacious regarding the neighbours. When we bought the property everything seemed fine with the neighbours and we were told by the estate agent that the stray dogs that hang out in the communal underground basement would be gone by the time we moved in. Of course this didn’t happen, and it turns out that it is one of the neighbors and some local university students who are feeding and pampering these strays (never in their own house - always in the communal basement). :fume: 6 million couldn’t buy a lot of property in my part of the UK - but at least there wouldn’t be strays running into my garage and barking at me when I come home.[/quote]

Wroof wroof. Call a dog rescue organization or have them neutered. :scooby:

[quote=“Mr He”] Omni, If you are caught in it, look at it this way:

You have as far as I can glean from your other posts ROC citizenship. [/quote]

I’m sorry to say that I haven’t acquired citizenship yet. I applied to naturalize more than six years ago, and completed the process up to obtaining the Certificate of Candidacy. The next step would have been to renounce my British citizenship. Initially, I was prepared to do so. But when I gave it close consideration, the unreasonableness of this requirement struck me very forcefully, for the reasons that have been well aired in other discussions. So I put it on hold while I prepared and presented a proposal for revision of the law. When that came up against a brick wall of refusal in the Ministry of the Interior, I decided not to pursue the application under the unfair provisions of the law as they currently remain. If Article 9 is at last amended to allow naturalizers to retain previous citizenship, I shall proceed with my application. Otherwise, I’ll abandon it, and accept that I am destined to never become a citizen and can only ever remain a second-class member of this society, even though I have served it a great deal better than the majority of its fully privileged members.

For many years, I was indeed settled in the assumption that I would spend the rest of my life in Taiwan. But in recent years, various matters have made me increasingly disenchanted with living here. The blockage of a fair path to citizenship and full inclusion in the society is one. The difficulties of raising a child here, the impossibility of giving my daughter as safe, healthy and happy a childhood as I enjoyed in England, and particularly the ghastly prospect of subjecting her to the cruel and damaging upper years of the local education system, are another. So now I am actively considering upping anchor and leaving for greener pastures a few years down the road, most likely when she reaches the end of her elementary schooling (in 2020).

Omni - in that case why did you buy? I would have talked you out of that in a new york minute.