Hsinchu City, a key high-tech hub, can be described as a “happy metropolis” because the financial burden of buying a home there is less than in most other big cities in the nation, a real-estate agent said on Saturday.
The average housing price in Hsinchu City was about six-times that of average disposable household income in the city, while the ratio in Hsinchu County was 6.6 times, according to figures compiled by Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), the nation’s only listed real-estate brokerage, based on government statistics on real-estate prices and household income.
Sinyi head researcher Stanley Su (蘇啟榮) attributed the relatively low house price-to-income ratio to the Hsinchu Science Park’s high production value, which has produced a group of high-income earners.
To such individuals, “a property priced at between NT$6 million [US$206,700] and NT$8 million would not constitute a major financial burden,” Su said.
Taipei City continued to be the area where potential homebuyers face the highest financial burden, with the average closing price of houses reaching NT$17.39 million in the first quarter of this year, the study found.
The price of housing in the city was 13 times that of average household income, higher than the 11.6 times recorded during the same period last year, according to Sinyi Realty figures.
Though Su acknowledged that the financial burden of purchasing a home had grown in the country’s capital, he said that many real-estate investors in Taipei were buying property with earnings that were not derived from salaries.
A certain number of buyers were also helped by their parents when purchasing their first home, Su added, as a result of which real-estate purchases in Taipei remained strong despite high prices.
The Sinyi Realty survey indicated that the second-highest housing price-to-income ratio was found in New Taipei City (新北市), where the price of housing was nine times as high as average household income this year, up from 8.2 times last year.
The ratio rose because average housing prices in the newly formed special municipality increased from NT$7.36 million to NT$8.42 million over the past year, Su said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”