New small apartments in Taipei are increasingly untenable for first-time home buyers, the mainstay of property transactions, as most require large down payments and mortgages, the Chinese-language Housing Monthly (住展雜誌) reported last week.
New apartments with two standard bedrooms, the mainstream products in recent years, on average cost about NT$20 million (US$643,977), meaning that buyers face down payments of NT$4 million or more, the report said.
About 30 presale and new housing projects have asking prices of between NT$20 million and NT$25 million per unit, with the figures climbing to NT$25 million to NT$30 million for homes in the prime Daan (大安) and Xinyi (信義) districts, Housing Monthly research manager Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said in the report.
Young people would have to save NT$400,000 a year for an entire decade to have enough for a down payment, but a considerable number of them do not earn that much, Ho said.
A few presale projects carry price tags of NT$15 million, but they are in Shilin District’s (士林) Shezidao (社子島) peninsula, which is unpopular due to a lack of convenient transportation and its propensity to flooding, Ho said.
Unless they have NT$20 million, people intent on living in Taipei have to lower their expectations and give up on owning a new apartment with two bedrooms, Ho said.
“Smaller and old apartments are options and so are locations outside of Taipei,” Ho said.
Home prices are unlikely to see significant corrections in the foreseeable future, despite economic uncertainty, the analyst said, adding that low interest rates and excessive liquidity have lent support to the local property market.
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