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Taipei property remains pricey: report

Homebuyers seeking to live in Taipei on average need to save every dollar they earn for 8.7 years to achieve their goal, a quarterly report said yesterday. This is the highest rate in the country,

The affordability of homes -- the ratio of prices of homes and annual income -- in the second quarter was slightly better than in the first quarter, according to the report conducted by the Institute for Physical Planning and Information.

The report said people who bought homes in Taipei on average spent 38.6 percent of their monthly salaries on mortgages, which is considered a high figure, Chang Chin-oh (張金鶚), professor of land economics at National Chengchi University, who conducted the report, said yesterday.

A reasonable range of house prices should be four to five times one's annual income and mortgages should be 25 percent to 33.3 percent of monthly income, Chang said.

Overall, people in Taiwan need to spend 6.52 years of their salaries to buy their homes, lower than the 6.8 years from the previous quarter, the report said.

The improvement in affordability reflected the confidence index of homebuyers.

Homebuyers were more positive in the second quarter as the composite index of confidence in house prices increased 0.88 points from the first quarter to 108 points, 7.47 points higher than in the same period last year, it said.
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