As income growth continues to lag behind rising housing prices, an increasing number of people are pushing back the age at which they purchase their first home. That is because they must spend more time to earn enough money for a down payment. The average age for first-time home buyers was 30 to 35 in the first quarter of 2013, but for the same period this year it ranged from 35 to 40, Evertrust Rehouse said last week, citing data compiled by the Joint Credit Information Center.
The brokerage also said that the average price of a home purchased by people aged 35 to 40 in the first quarter of this year was NT$11.54 million (US$385,360), NT$4.13 million more than the NT$7.41 million that the same age group spent nine years earlier. However, the floor area of properties purchased by this age group had shrunk by 2.1 ping (6.94m2) to 43.6 ping on average this year, from 45.7 ping in 2013.
In addition, 22 percent of people taking out a mortgage in the first quarter of 2013 were aged 30 to 35, but in the first quarter of this year, primary mortgage takers were aged 35 to 40, accounting for 19 percent of the total, and those aged 50 and older, or 20 percent, the brokerage said, citing the center’s data.
People aged 50 and older have become the primary demographic taking new mortgages, the analysis shows. This phenomenon reflects that people aged 50 and older have sufficient wealth for property purchases, want to purchase properties given that homes are tangible assets that retain value amid global economic changes or choose to transfer some assets to real estate to hand down to their children.
Indeed, people aged 50 and older tend to have a stable income with a good credit record, so it is not unusual that they would become the main demographic taking out mortgages. However, an important takeaway from the data is that if real-estate prices continue to climb faster than wage growth, young adults would face more difficulty buying homes before the age of 35, and the average age for mortgage holders would also likely continue to grow. People who cannot save for a down payment early in life are having greater trouble affording homes, but even when borrowing money to buy a home, rising prices mean heavier mortgage burdens and lower affordability.
Unaffordable housing in Taiwan has been a top public grievance for many years, and the ratio of housing prices to family incomes confirms the trend of deteriorating affordability. Based on data released by the Ministry of the Interior early this month, Taiwanese home prices averaged 9.58 times household income in the first quarter of the year, the highest since the ministry began collecting such data in 2002. Meanwhile, mortgages accounted for 38.35 percent of household income in the first three months this year, up 0.52 percentage points from the previous quarter and 1.81 percentage points from a year earlier, the data showed.
Difficulty in purchasing a home is a crucial factor that keeps people from marrying, and deters young couples from having children, which then affects consumption, investment and production. The government must fulfill its promises to make housing more affordable, or this issue could have a deleterious effect on the nation’s economy and society, to the extent that it evolves into a national security issue.
A recent report concerning a student who is suing his teacher posed the question in its headline: Does failing a student in two subjects constitute bullying? The college student in Chiayi County apparently sought NT$2 million (US$63,603) in state compensation, but a court dismissed the case. The first reaction of many might have been to ask: What has happened to students nowadays? Some say that teachers have lost their authority, while others say students are overindulged. Some even start reminiscing over the days when “whatever the teacher says goes.” However, the real issue might be overlooked if emotional reactions like that are the
When I visited Taiwan last summer, I called on the nation to use its status as a technology superpower to build superweapons. It is obvious to me as I return a year later that Taiwan is now answering that call. By 2030, Taiwan envisions a domestic drone hub, capable of producing large quantities of drones per year. The nation continues to tighten cooperation across the private sector, scientific researchers and the elected government, on creating new and innovative production avenues for defense, while efforts to become central to the “democratic supply chain” are only increasing. Anduril is seeing all of these positive
Singaporean former Prime Minister and current senior minister Lee Hsien- Loong(李顯龍) last month stood on Chinese soil and told Beijing that Singapore cooperates because of “shared interests”, not because of common “ethnic descent,” a significant statement that has upended China’s cognitive warfare tactics of “ethnic nationalism.” Along with using its military buildup and economic growth to expand its international dominance, China has long deployed ethnic politics to promote the idea that all ethnic Chinese around the world, regardless of citizenship, share a tight bond with the Chinese motherland, by which it means the regime of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
President William Lai Ching-te’s (賴清德) May 20 second-anniversary address was not just a routine policy review; it was damage control. US President Donald Trump’s remarks — that he did not want to see anyone move toward independence and that the delivery of a major Taiwan arms package could depend on the progress of US-China relations — unsettled Taiwan’s public and created an opening for opposition parties to question whether Taiwan was being treated as a bargaining chip in Washington’s dealings with Beijing. Lai’s speech was designed to close that opening. The address covered the expected ground: sovereignty, cross-strait relations, defense spending,
RSS