Housing affordability grew worse in the first quarter, as the average mortgage burden climbed by 0.52 percentage points to 38.35 percent nationwide, a report released yesterday by the Ministry of the Interior showed.
The data suggest that mortgages accounted for a big chunk of the disposable income of households on average and this would worsen after the central bank raised interest rates twice and increased the mortgage burden by 1.5 percent.
The ministry classifies mortgage burdens as follows: below 30 percent, reasonable; higher than 30 percent, slightly high; more than 40 percent, relatively high; and more than 50 percent, overly high.
Photo: Lam Yik Fei, Bloomberg
Mortgage burdens in Taipei constituted 64.91 percent of household incomes, retreating from 65.09 percent three months earlier as housing prices became less expensive at 16.22 times the average household income, the ministry said.
Mortgage burden in New Taipei City ranked second at 51.45 percent, gaining 1.43 percentage points from the preceding quarter, the ministry said.
During the first three months of the year, mortgage burden rose by 1.58 percentage points to 45.08 percent of household income in Taichung, where housing prices were 11.26 times the average household income, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, Yilan, Hsinchu and Changhua counties, as well as Tainan and Kaohsiung, all saw mortgage burdens surpass 35 percent, but the figure in Taoyuan declined a fractional 0.26 percentage points to 31.5 percent.
Keelung, Chiayi County and Yunlin County are among the few in Taiwan where the mortgage burden remained below the reasonable threshold of 30 percent, the ministry found.
The report also showed that the home price index, which gauges fluctuations in residential property values in the nation, rose 2.99 percent from a quarter earlier to 121.01 in the first quarter.
The ministry attributed the increase to robust economic growth, low interest rates and inflationary expectations.
In the January-to-March period, Kaohsiung and Taichung saw the largest increase in the home price sub-index among the six special municipalities, rising 4.7 percent and 3.65 percent respectively from the preceding quarter, data showed.
The sub-indices for Taoyuan and Taipei saw the lowest increases of 2.7 percent and 1.91 percent respectively, the data showed.
Analysts said housing price changes would not affect the mortgage burden of existing homeowners even though price corrections might mitigate the burden of new borrowers.
Despite headwinds ahead for the market, housing prices would hold firm, because sellers believe property is a good defense against inflation and economic upheavals, they said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Poland is betting on a flood of investments and technology transfers from Taiwanese companies to reengineer its US$1 trillion economy. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said yesterday that Poland will no longer be “just an assembly hub” as it pursues further investments from the likes of Foxconn Technology Group (富士康). The firm, whose full name is Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), last month agreed to build electric vehicles (EVs) in the European Union nation and now could be a partner in a semiconductor venture, he said. The government’s aim is to boost manufacturing and the country’s high-tech chops in an era
Taiwan remained the sixth-largest net creditor nation in the world last year, despite a fall of more than 10 percent in its net international investment position (NIIP) over the year, the central bank said yesterday. The NIIP is the difference between a country’s external financial assets and its external financial liabilities. Taiwan’s external financial assets hit US$3.27 trillion at the end of last year, up US$275.75 billion or 9.2 percent from a year earlier, the central bank said in its annual NIIP report. The growth largely reflected an increase in holdings of overseas marketable securities by residents in Taiwan, as well as a
BAD FAITH LITIGATION? The two companies, owned by a California-based private equity firm, could be seeking licensing fees or a settlement payout with the suit Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) Director-General Liao Cheng-wei (廖承威) said yesterday he suspected that two firms suing contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) for patent infringement are “patent trolls.” A patent troll refers to a company that buys patents not for manufacturing products, but to sue other companies for compensation, accusing them of using its patents. Patent trolls, formally called Non-Practicing Entities or Patent Assertion Entities, were responsible for more than 50 percent of lawsuits in the US last year, costing targeted businesses tens of billions of US dollars a year, according to the US-based LegalCharity Web site. Asked whether
RESTRICTION BREACH: ASML said that it denies ‘unfounded rumors regarding non-compliance with export controls concerning China,’ and enforces controls strictly US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in a series of recent meetings outlined concerns to Dutch chip-equipment giant ASML Holding NV’s senior leaders that one of its top-of-the-line machines might have made its way into China, in violation of US-led export restrictions. In the meetings, Lutnick expressed concern to ASML executives over the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, people familiar with the talks said. EUV systems are used by firms such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) to manufacture processors for the likes of Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc. ASML has never been allowed to ship them to China because of curbs
RSS