The financial burden on consumers buying houses is getting heavier, as the average house price is now 6.41 times higher than home shoppers' average annual income, the highest in the past three years, according to a survey released by the Council for Economic Planning and Dev-elopment yesterday.
The survey was conducted through nine real-estate agents and 19 local banks, which polled people who have already applied for house loans and who were hunting for properties nationwide between Oct. 1 and Oct. 15. The survey had 2,293 valid responses.
Those who bought or wanted to buy houses or apartments in Taipei City had the heaviest load, as the average price is 7.8 times higher than their average yearly income, the survey showed, followed by Taipei County with 6.67 times higher and Kaohsiung County with 6.28 times higher.
Despite the growing divide between property prices and earnings, the figure is still lower than that of other Asian cities, Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄), chairman of construction firm Far Glory Group (遠雄企業團), told a press conference held by the council yesterday.
The average price of houses is 19 times the annual income in Hong Kong, and the gap is even larger in Shanghai, where people need to spend 24 times their annual income on houses, Chao said.
Second-hand houses are home shoppers' major target, as 49.3 percent of respondents said second-hand units are their first priority, while 38.3 percent said they choose brand-new houses or apartments as their first homes.
The council also said that the housing-market consumer confidence index reached 101.6 points in the third quarter, up 1.07 points from the previous quarter.
"It shows that consumers still have confidence in the market regardless of the growing burden," said Timothy Ma (馬玉山), chairman of Kingdom Construction Corp (冠德建設).
The general outlook for next year, however, is not that positive, as 32.7 percent of the polled said they expect property prices to drop, while only 19.4 percent said the prices will rise.
The negative outlook may be attributed to a looming oversupply in the second quarter of next year, when many pre-sale houses will be completed, said Chang Chin-oh (張金鶚), vice chairman of the Institute for Physical Planning and Information (國土規劃及不動產資訊中心) under the council.
Taiwan's housing market will boom if the government lifts bans on Chinese visitors and direct links with China, Chao said, adding that the average house price in metropolitan areas nationwide is expected to jump at least 25 percent within five years after policy liberalization.
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