New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed.
The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said.
Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last year, an increase of 19 percentage points from 2019, Evertrust deputy research head Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said.
At the same time, apartments with two, three and four bedrooms or more shed 1.1 percentage points to 9 percentage points, Chen said.
The bigger the apartment, the higher the value, making them less likely to change hands, she said.
Likewise, apartments with one bedroom last year made up 10.9 percent of transactions in New Taipei City and underpinned 14.2 percent of deals in Taichung, representing advances of 7.7 percentage points and 10.8 percentage points respectively from five years earlier, Everturst said.
The trend was also seen in Taoyuan, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Hsinchu county and city, although at a less conspicuous pace, it said.
Apartments with one bedroom contributed 8.4 percent of deals in Taoyuan, 8.8 percent in Hsinchu county and city, 9.6 percent in Tainan and 6.7 percent in Kaohsiung, it said, adding that the figures suggested gains of 3.5 to 8.1 percentage points.
Although apartments with two and three bedrooms remain the mainstream, a growing number of buyers, especially young people, have settled for less space so as to become homeowners, Evertrust said.
People in Tainan and Kaohsiung still favor apartments with three or four bedrooms given that they constituted 40 percent of deals, Chen said.
However, the preference could lose momentum if prices continue to soar and become untenable, she said.
Price increases have been less drastic in Taipei and New Taipei City in the past five years compared with elsewhere in Taiwan, but an already high base makes them beyond reach, Chen said.
Meanwhile, the number of old houses occupied by older people climbed to a record high of 690,500 in the third quarter of 2022, 75.42 percent of which had lone occupiers, raising safety concerns and the urgency of urban renewal projects, the Ministry of the Interior said.
The average age of residential property in Taiwan is 33 years, while the figure is 37.75 years in Taipei, the ministry said.
More old apartments would have lone occupants in light of a rapidly aging society and a low birthrate, it said.
The National Development Council has estimated that Taiwan would become a super-aged society next year when more than 20 percent of the population is aged 65 or older.
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