No desire whatsoever to live in Taipei…
If anything, I’ll be heading to the southeast coast as I age, and hopefully my nearest neighbor will be several hundred yards away!
Sunny forest is THE place to live if you like the burbs cheap…
Don’t these look a little spacey to you? Makes me feel like I’ve just landed on the klingon home world and we’re about to visit the High Council with Captain Picard or something.
With ample room at the top for human sacrifices I see… 
[quote=“Michael J Botti”]With ample room at the top for human sacrifices I see… [/quote]The reason the sides are so steep is so that anyone thrown off the top bounces all the way to the bottom without getting stuck. It would be be embarrassing if they stopped half way down and you had to walk down and poke them with a stick. It would completely ruin the pacing of the ceremony.
Well Jiayi is hardly the best place in Taiwan, you haven’t been to the hill yet. Even though we are located in the sticks, we do have footpaths here - and burly guards keeping the toudoufu peddlers away.[/quote]
The hill??
Well, one american lives a bit lower than we do, and he does not have all the moisture.
I keep things under control with a dehumidifier and a couple of kerosene heaters. Nice and cosy indoors, and the fog outside only adds to the “foreign” feeling.
[quote=“surfbunny”]
The hill??[/quote]
Sunny Forest Hill, by far the best community in its price range i have seen - and that includes Lotus Hill (Scyscraper hill).
Sunny Forest Hill…Taoyuan county’s best kept secret 
We even have log homes. A good friend of mine lives in a custom built cedar home that would not be out of place in Aspen or the Italian Alps. My daughter is doing a TV program in Taipei hence a twice weekly commute, but before she started the only reason to hit Taipei at all would be food runs to Costco. A 50 minute drive that I can live with.
Before coming up here, my daughter was constantly coming down with throat and ear infections (Chungli). After many trips to the doctor, his conclusion was sensitivity to the dirty air surrounding the Chungli industrial park…After moving up here, she’s been problem free in this area for 8 years now. I’ve never seen a more kid friendly neighborhood anywhere in Taiwan.
Sunny forest hill was the brainchild of several overseas Chinese architects living in Southern California about 25 years ago. The original 25 homes that were built here reflect that, and would fit nicely in any hilltop suburban in Southern California (We even have the brush fires). As the neighborhood expanded, and the price of land exploded, homes were built on a more modest level. However, it retains it’s original feel and anyone who has been to visit cannot help but be impressed by a nice blend of suburban feel, affordable homes, fantastic views, serenity and at the same time being close to nature. Mr. He lives on a nice suburban style with street with well manicured yards where he can safely let his kids ride their bicycles and take long afternoon strolls with his spouse. For 15,000NT a month, he gets a nice front and back yard, 56pings, and no parking hassles for his ancient nissan sunny. We are also well located for our mountain forays, and are only 5 minutes from the freeway.
We toot our horn here only becuase we are amazed more people have not heard of this place…Call it a Yangmei bias.
Have to go now, it’s naptime and my hammock is calling me…
Wow, that sounds super affordable given the size and amenities. Are you sure it’s not located on some former hazardous waste site or something? Or maybe it’s just way out in the boonies
No, we have no hazardous waste sites here - but they are getting a hot spring ready, so we will have our own hot spring resort shortly.
when traffic is good, you can make Taipei city center in 45 minutes. If you work in Taoyuan or Xinzhu, the location is perfect.
How can it be so cheap? I know of apartments in Chungli that rent for as much. And you have a full house with front/backyards? Wow…
Several reasons:
While we are only 5 minutes from the freeway and a hypermarket, and only 25 minutes from mountains and the coast, it’s on the top of a hill, and therefore there are no doufu sellers peddling their wares in front of your house. The place is seen as slightly remote and not very “renao”…
People down here in southern Taoyuan don’t place as much as a premium on living in nice clean surroundings with lots of fresh air. Therefore, the prospective group of buyers is relatively smaller than in greater Taipei.
The hill is not that cheap. I rented a good 30 ping flat in Yangmei for NT$6k/mo with everything included. Here I would be paying NT$9k for a similar flat - a 50% surcharge compared to the bottow of the hill.
The hill is old - the oldest parts are 20+ years. Construction quality in some parts can be lacking with my house having some sea-sand in the concrete. All the houses which were build around the time as mine have leaky roofs. Concrete cancer is also a problem. I will have to fix my roof with some PU and hope that it takes the worst.
There are newer better and non-leaking 60 ping houses, but for a semi-detached you are looking at NT$20k in rent per month.
The oldest houses are also well built, the one Michael Botti lives in is quite solid.
The wooden houses they used to build here are slowly rotting away, but are very expensive, NT$20k+ for 30 pings.
Well, to each his own. I prefer to have a garden. I am the only one on my street with a banana plant in the front garden. My back garden/barbecue patch has a mulberry tree. The top floor is hardly usable due to leaking water, so we end up using that huge room up there for storage - would be a great master bedroom, once I find and close the leaks in the roofs.
The oldest houses are very well built - Michael’s in a case in point. the newest ones are also good, but some of the ones in the middle are somewhat shoddy. However, they are still livable.
I can only recommend the place.
some people complains about the humidity in winter, but it’s bearable. It’s also cooler up there during the summer, which is a plus.
That rings alarm bells! Remember the big scandal of thousands of buildings around Taiwan (including quite a few in Taoyuan County) being built with steel reinforcing bars that were contaminated with Cobalt-60 and emitted levels of radiation hundreds of times above safe levels? That radioactive rebar went into buildings constructed between 1982 and 1984! I think I’d want to take a Geiger counter with me if I were considering renting or buying a home that was put up in the early 1980s.
Well, it’s the elite living up here. Those houses have been measured several times over by anxious owners, so I would not worry too much about that.
It has always been a place for the elite.
Moreover, the radioactive steel problem has always been a problem with smaller second-tier steelmakers recucling scrap, a big construction company such as Pacific Construction (which built the hill) would usually get their supplies directly from first-tier makers.
Therefore, no worries on that front.
How can you start a thread without even knowing it?..
When I first moved up here, I lived in one of the newer duplex syle homes. Paid ten grand a month for a 3 bedroom/3 bath place with a really well laid out floor plan. It even had storage closets! Also had a nice little 15ping or so yard with grass. Spent 6 contented years there, but was running out of space. The place I live in now is 56 pings, including a 20 ping living room and a really big yard. I’ve got Papaya, starfruit and Yo-tz trees trees. I’ve also got 2 good size palm trees back there. Well over 50 pings in yard space alone…For all this I pay 14,000NT a month.
We have all assortmants of wild animals running around, some welcome, some less so. A couple of weeks ago, I put my pillow up for some reading and found a centipede hiding in my bed! Little bastard was about six inches long. Snakes are also very common. I have several dozen resident lizards and a couple of blind snakes that call my yard home. Also a group of squirrels that keeping pigging out on my papayas.
I would say at least 20% of the residents here commute daily to Taipei, and the fact that they are willing to put up with the horrendous traffic says a lot about our little community.
Drinking my morning coffee and looking out over the ocean is nice too…
If anybody wants to check out the hill, please send me a PM…I’ll be more than happy to give a fellow forumosan the ‘Grand tour’…
Don’t know much about Taiwan construction practices, but my guess is you wouldn’t need rebar in a 1-4 family residential building, it’s too small for the concrete to require reinforcement.
You see ome new houses going up here with rebar in them, but ours is brick with some RC in the corners. The newer houses might be all concrete though.
Why is this thread not in Living in Taiwan?
Adding it up, I firmly believe that I live in the best community in Taiwan.
Period.
Are you leaving Sunny Forest Hill for somewhere else on the island, or are you leaving Taiwan?