Which in turn turns capital into mush because the investments stop. The problem with real estate investing is that the folks buy and won’t invest further. They let it gather dust. No paint, no repairs, no upkeep. The balloon keeps growing and growing…
Same with big companies. They take their money out of Taiwan. Investments in the Caribbean off shore accounts.
So there is little incentive for improvement, like better salaries, better working conditions, nicer buildings, healthier living.
The war generation being stingy. The next generation if they have money they are in US, if not their money is.
Well there are plenty of luxury apartments going for cheapish rent in Kaohsiung, so somebody still needs to make some money back to cover the mortgages.
Perhaps the increase in value over the period of the mortgage is enough to cover it. I’m talking about a house that bought for sat 8 million 20 years ago, that is now worth 20 million. They can’t rent it high because there are so many empty units out there. Rent and value of the property is completely out of wack in taiwan
I remember reading the same youth unemployment article 20 years ago.
Most just don’t want to work.
They are zillions of jobs out there.
And they actually pay better than before. But they still don’t want to work.
In fact there are tonnes of people who dont work here including many adults living off investments, inheritance, early retirement and just ticking along.
Not necessarily. I know people who have less than ten year old units in central Taipei that still can’t sell even after dropping the price to what they paid for it when the unit was first built. That’s not even “sold at the same price they paid for it almost a decade ago”. That’s “still no one wants to buy it at the price they paid for it almost a decade ago”. All of these are units that are a stone’s throw from very central MRT stops. Somewhere else on Formosa, I posted the list price vs. price of new builds in Taipei. With the exception of one build, which only sold one out of 49 units so far, going south along the brown line from TSA, everything is being sold for 10-40% less than the listed price. And outside of Taipei, I see more and more half-finished builds (mostly row houses) that just sit for months and some even years with the scaffolding up and no windows or doors. So this bubble can keep inflating as long as people are pumping money into it, but I find it difficult to believe that in 20 years one will be able to sell a home at such a profit that their mortgage costs will be covered. My guess would be that one will be very lucky to sell the home at the price they paid for it in 2023. Everything about Taiwan’s housing costs (especially outside of Taipei for the past few years) has defied general economic rules, and the low birth rate has already hit the universities and their enrollment. 20 years from now, those non-existent young adults would be in their 40s, not around to buy those properties because they were never born in the first place. Why weren’t they born? Cuz housing was too expensive and wages suck too much for parents to make that decision.
I asked my cousin about tech wealth trickling down, and all he could say was that young people can’t afford to buy homes. I said Taiwan’s home ownership rate is already high. He said no, they’re all owned by investors.
Outside Taipei, mortgages can be paid off with rent in a lot of the cases. I have firsthand experience with it in Hsinchu and Taichung. That’s basically buying the property for 20-30% of the value and paying the rest with other people’s money. Now whether it’s worth parking your money there for 30 years is another matter.
Problem is if everyone starts making great money the landlords will end up with it. They will raise rent to level that people can pay. If everyone made at least 60,000 expect a studio to cost 30,000.
This is literally what has happened in Tainan and surround with the tech boom.
The covid reaction played it’s part, but certainly not the main factor in taiwans labor problems. Also: immigration, migrant workers, local labor force, mass entitlement/spoilage, family enablement of “man children” (women too, just dont know the includlsive term), company abuses of power, general corruption and so on.
I mean, I won’t deny the reality of entitlement all around, but there are far more man childs in Taiwan than woman childs — women still tend to marry into the husband’s family and are expected to take on the role of raising their husband, in-laws, and actual children, along with taking care of themselves. If the women don’t do things, things tend not to get done. I’ve lost track of how many fathers I’ve met here with two+ year old children that don’t even know how to change a diaper. Where the f*** have you been for the past two years?! At least the women, no matter how entitled of a family they come from, take on common sense roles and learn how to enroll their children in school, schedule doctors appointments, and know how to buy appropriate food for the fridge in order to make meals. Generally speaking…
In the past 20 years, sure. But anyone who thinks prices will continue to climb for the next 20 years knows something about Taiwan’s future that no one else knows. Taiwan’s birthrate is either the lowest or one of the lowest in the world, which means the population is going to become smaller and smaller unless they’re opening up to mass immigration (as in citizenship) or opening up property ownership to Chinese money.
700 USD is over the average for a family sized rental in Ktown. And there are what seems to hundreds of thousands of apartments and houses. I think we will be okay for accommodation for a while yet. Things are pretty good.
As for the price of property, nothing surprises me in Taiwan.
Only thing that will change the situation is Chinese as mentioned above, but I couldn’t stand this place if it was full of Chinese as it would be sold down the river.
