Why so difficult to find a nice apartment?

they don’t want to rent so they put high price. I wish they do vacancy tax to stop all this.

It is 50K + 3390 management fee (per month). Plus there is a one off commission payable to the agent by the renter of probably around 50K.

So we agree that this budget is not enough for a nice place in the center, in many cities :slight_smile: And I agree that in many cities an average wages can’t cover city center rents.

What I thought is a very good point: compared to average wages here, 50k seems a quite high budget (for a single person household). If you want to stick to a “max 30% of wages for rent” rule, we would be looking at someone earning 150k NTD per month. That means you can get a great apartment close to the MRT for that budget - just maybe not as central as the OP wants.

@vagabond : I trust you use 591 to look for places? Hint: the mobile app allows arbitrary lower and upper bounds for rent in searches, much more useful than the “40+k” on the website. Using 35-45k (to allow for 5k management fees), 2 rooms, 20-30 ping as filters, it looks like quite a few places available between 101 and Xinyi Anhe. Photos look quite OK to me.

Screenshot_20191024-132126_591

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50k is a lot! You can find a nice crib for way less than that. Just be patient, go out whenever you have free time…

Find areas you like and just pound the pavement, bring a TW friend and check out signs posted around the neighborhoods…

Why? Because housing in Taipei is old and dirty and way overvalued.

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I just looked online to see if prices have really increased that much.

They haven’t.

$50k gets you a nice apartment, even in Xinyi District. Perhaps my standards aren’t as high as some but you can easily get a smaller apartment in that area for far less.

@vagabond I suggest to mark that post as solution :laughing:

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I don’t know about you, but if I had 50k to spend on housing, I’d find a shit place for 15k and spend the rest on making it nice inside. After a few years you’d end up with a huge amount of savings. But I never have 50k to spend on housing anyways. I spend 10k on a shit place and I make the best of it. First floor is always nice because I can have heavy stuff without too much problems.

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50k gets you a beautiful illegal rooftop addition at the south end of Daan or Xinyi. Fulfills most of your requirements:

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First few floors are the first to go if the building partially crumbles in a major earthquake, right?

Well how would I get a 1000kg milling machine and a lathe up those flights of stairs?

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Brilliant!

I get where you’re coming from, vagabond.

I too spent many pointless months searching for a ‘nice’ apartment in Taipei, and my budget was higher than yours. Sadly, Taipei is not SG, KL or HCMC where, in exchange for a ridiculous amount of money, you can be assured of a reasonable, mold-free, idiot-neighbour-free, standard of accommodation.

Do what I did. Work and live elsewhere asap.

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It’s also comes with free 100c heating in summer and typhoon fun days. :grin:

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Check around the Da Tong neighborhood, the Da Qiao Tou station. I looked at an apt there a couple years back to use as a studio piece that was like 10-12kish that was quite fine inside. I can’t imagine it’s gone up in price that much.

@hunter63 Spot on, HCMC has about the most absurdly great deals on apt rentals on the planet…
@Taiwan_Luthiers right on, no need to overpay for doormen, fancy lobbies, etc if you’re renting…

Exactly my impression. Housing here sucks compared to so many places. It’s ridiculous

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