Seriously…ugly.
My wife sometimes looks at those Taiwanese housing TV shows, where people show off their very nice apartments and stand alone houses. And by seeing some of them, there are definitely very nice houses in Taiwan. But need to spend a fortune on buying and decorating them, out of my budget 
Looks like the entrance to a crappy community pool.
Tough crowd here! Compared to the concrete boxes that proliferate in Taiwan, I thought this was a step up.
I would also welcome MUJI housing into the market, but I am already familiar enough with Taiwan to know that the gangster / political / construction complex controlling this market would never willingly allow a sensible Japanese player to get a piece of their lucrative pie.
Guy
Sorry. Looks like a shed for livestock.
No thanks.
The pile-on continues!
No doubt you guys would also trash my beloved MUJI housing too. Note: not available in Taiwan, for reasons.
Guy
The muji housing is better than that, not sure how it would hold up in typhoons.
A house in Taiwan on a lake ? Almost unheard of.
Some of my in-laws live in large houses on the countryside surrounded by farmland but my God the decor and design. The tiles!!!
Yeah…fuck tiles on the outside of the house.
We call it putting the toilet on the outside of your house!
Pay to play. Building code is one thing. Anesthetics are another. We just moved. Repainted and redecorated and we are SUPER happy. Won’t post pics as to not give away identity. But we spent 60k (nt obviosuly) and completely redi the electrical and paint. Couldn’t be happier. Big old style house, 2 fen land and garden. Central location (not in the city!!!). 10k. Most I’ve ever paid rent in Taiwan for a home.
People are welcome to search and adjust houses. Mandarin ability might help unless the landlord speaks english/your native tongue.
It’s not as dire as people think.
I should take pics of people’s houses while driving around, it’s WAY different now. Albeit, certainly taiwan is an expensive country to buy.
There’s also Ikea BoKlok
The staircase looks cheap.
I like it, it’s got a barndominium vibe. I’m not into solar hot water heaters though.
If that thing ever goes up for sale, at least I won’t be facing competing bids from you forumosans.
Guy
New builds are nice. I just moved to one. It makes a difference. Sunlight and air flow could still be better, I wish there was more balcony space (taiwanese seem to hate balconys) but it is what it is.
The last place I lived in was an elevator building but it was seriously grotty. Really put me off old buildings here, even tho I think a lot of them look nice from the outside.
The bigger problem is the living enviroment. Polluted air, noise, traffic and no greenery. I just don’t want to accept these things any more.
That’s hard to get away from new build or old build.
New build also have fewer cockroaches and stuff just works.
Older places tend to have much bigger balconies handy for washing clothes and growing some plants. I think most Taiwanese don’t use the balconies much so they shrunk them. You can’t really enjoy to sit on the balconies here due to aforementioned issues. Heat and humidity and mosquitoes as well.
Was just looking at videos of Tehran and thinking nice apartments and pavements.
That’s not the whole country. There are plenty of places as you describe.
Never said I was describing the whole country. But still its a fair amount of it. And its hard to totally avoid.
I’m in a nice area now but still, some air pollution, temples burning shit and neighbors cigarette smoke. A million times better than the other places ive lived in Taiwan tho.
@Brianjones this building is brand new. Still had some roaches. Seen big ones in the hallway, one got as close as our balcony door frame and a couple of small ones got inside. We’ve put covers on all the drains now.