House prices and rentals in Taipei City still have potential to continue surging, real-estate brokers said on Thursday.
In the newest list of Asia’s most expensive places to live published by Forbes magazine, Taipei ranks 16th with an average monthly rent of US$1,065 for a high-end, two-bedroom apartment.
Toyko topped the list at US$4,737, followed by Hong Kong at US$3,871 and Beijing in third place at US$3,659.
Urban enclaves where prices rose the most include the region’s financial hubs such as Taipei, Mumbai and Singapore, Mercer Consulting’s annual cost-of-living survey showed.
Despite the global downturn, rents are relatively high and property prices are on the rise in these cities, Forbes said.
“In the past, we’ve seen Europe as the most expensive. Over time, the Asian cities have caught up quite a bit in terms of cost-of-living increases,” said Cathy Loose, a principal consultant at Mercer. “Mainly because of the limited space, real estate in terms of demand versus supply is driving the rental price high.”
Huang Cheng-fu (黃增福), an assistant manager with Evertrust Rehouse (永慶房屋), one of the leading real estate brokers in Taiwan, said the US$1,065 monthly rental estimated by Mercer for a high-end two-bedroom apartment in Taipei’s upscale Da-an (大安) or Xinyi (信義) districts was a reasonably accurate figure.
Rental costs and house prices in Taipei are expected to continue rising amid ever closer exchanges in the greater China area, Huang said.
Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), a manager at Sinyi Realty Estate (信義房屋), said Taipei’s ranking on the Forbes list showed there was ample room for the city to become more international, as the rate of a city’s globalization was related to its rental levels. If there are more foreign executives in a city, its rent levels usually go up because they rent high-quality houses, he said.
With cross-strait exchanges continuing to expand and more foreign and Chinese executives coming to Taiwan, Su said Taipei was likely to move further up the list.
Other parts of the country, however, will not see a similar rise in real estate property or rental prices, another analyst said.
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