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.
UNPRECEDENTED PACE: Micron Technology has announced plans to expand manufacturing capabilities with the acquisition of a new chip plant in Miaoli Micron Technology Inc unveiled a newly acquired chip plant in Miaoli County yesterday, as the company expands capacity to meet growing demand for advanced DRAM chips, including high-bandwidth memory chips amid the artificial intelligence boom. The plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), which Micron acquired from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion, is expected to make a sizeable capacity contribution to the company from fiscal 2028, the company said in a statement. It would be an extended production site of Micron’s large-scale manufacturing hub in Taichung, the company said. As the global semiconductor industry is racing to reach US$1 trillion
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan’s food delivery market could undergo a major shift if Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd completes its planned acquisition of Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda business in Taiwan, industry experts said. Grab on Monday last week announced it would acquire Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations for US$600 million. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second half of this year, with Grab aiming to complete user migration to its platform by the first half of next year. A duopoly between Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominates Taiwan’s delivery market, a structure that has remained intact since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) blocked Uber Technologies Inc’s
Memory chip stocks extended their losses yesterday after Alphabet Inc’s Google publicized research that could allow more efficient use of the storage needed for artificial intelligence (AI) development. SK Hynix Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korean leaders in the market, fell more than 6 percent and about 5 percent respectively in Seoul. In the US, Micron Technology Inc, Western Digital Corp and Sandisk Corp slid more than 2 percent in pre-market trading, after they all closed lower on Wednesday. Memory companies have been on a tear in recent months as the rapid development of AI infrastructure triggered a spike in chip
RSS