A majority of Taiwanese consider home prices unreasonably high after the mortgage-to-household-income ratio hit a record in Taipei City in the third quarter as prices surged to their highest level in eight years, a government survey released yesterday found.
Prices of newly purchased homes averaged NT$12.35 million (US$405,117) per unit, about 11 times the annual household income in Taipei, the Construction and Planning Agency’s survey found.
Prices have risen to NT$420,000 per ping (3.3m2) the previous high was set in the second quarter of 2002, the survey showed.
Mortgage payments accounted for 43.8 percent of household income in the capital and 31.2 percent for the rest of the country, the survey showed.
“The burdens led 60 percent of respondents in Taipei City and New Taipei City to describe home prices as unreasonable,” said Chang Chin-oh (張金鶚), a land economics professor at National Chengchi University, who helped organize the survey.
Housing prices averaged NT$7.5 million, or 8.9 times household income in New Taipei City (formerly Taipei County), with mortgage payments taking up 34.6 percent, the second-highest after Taipei home owners, the survey said.
The increasing burdens led 70 percent of respondents in New Taipei City to consider home prices unreasonable, the survey said.
Nearly 40 percent of new homebuyers dismissed links between the rising housing prices and Taiwan’s signing of an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China in June, the survey said. The rest considered the pact a mixed blessing.
“The findings indicated reported benefits from ECFA are exaggerated,” Chang said, urging developers and real estate agencies to show restraint in pricing properties.
A majority of the respondents, 53.8 percent, said their home purchases were for their own use, while 18.5 percent cited investment, the survey said.
Chang said the survey showed that the central bank’s tightening measures aimed at cooling down the housing sector have been futile. He suggested the central bank and other regulators take stronger action if they are serious about reining in soaring prices.
The central bank will hold its quarterly board meeting next Thursday to review interest rates and other monetary policy.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, booked its first-ever profit from its Arizona subsidiary in the first half of this year, four years after operations began, a company financial statement showed. Wholly owned by TSMC, the Arizona unit contributed NT$4.52 billion (US$150.1 million) in net profit, compared with a loss of NT$4.34 billion a year earlier, the statement showed. The company attributed the turnaround to strong market demand and high factory utilization. The Arizona unit counts Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc among its major customers. The firm’s first fab in Arizona began high-volume production
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE: The Japanese company is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence linchpins Nvidia Corp and TSMC Softbank Group Corp agreed to buy US$2 billion of Intel Corp stock, a surprise deal to shore up a struggling US name while boosting its own chip ambitions. The Japanese company, which is adding Intel to an investment portfolio that includes artificial intelligence (AI) linchpins Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is to pay US$23 a share — a small discount to Intel’s last close. Shares of the US chipmaker, which would issue new stock to Softbank, surged more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. Softbank’s stock fell as much as 5.4 percent on Tuesday in Tokyo, its
COLLABORATION: Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture would make AI data center equipment, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) would operate a US factory owned by Softbank Group Corp, setting up what is in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company’s US$500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. Softbank is acquiring Hon Hai’s electric-vehicle plant in Ohio, but the Taiwanese company would continue to run the complex after turning it into an artificial intelligence (AI) server production plant, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday. Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies would make AI data
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices