The financial burden of buying a home in Taipei City hit a record high in the first quarter of this year, with prices averaging the equivalent of 10.4 years of a buyer’s income, a survey published yesterday found.
Chang Chin-oh (張金鶚), a professor at the Department of Land Economics of National Chengchi University, which organized the survey, said the results showed the unprecedented high costs for would-be home owners in Taipei City.
TAIPEI COUNTY
In Taipei County, a home cost the equivalent of 7.8 times a buyer’s annual income, said the study, carried out by the Institute for Physical Planning and Information during the first half of last month.
In Taichung City and Taichung County, the ratio stood at 6.7 times a buyer’s yearly income. In Taoyuan and Hsinchu counties the figure fell to six and in Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County fell to 5.6.
NATIONWIDE
Nationwide, apartment and house prices in the first quarter were 7.5 times buyers’ full annual earnings, up from 6.6 a year ago, Chang said.
The survey also found that housing loan principals in Taipei City also rose to a new high of 43.6 percent of a buyers’ monthly salary, representing a serious burden on the living standards of home owners.
The problem might be much more serious than it appears on the surface, Chen said, adding that the survey did not address the issue of people who cannot afford to buy a home.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured