Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he has no intention of pushing down house prices in the city, and that his public housing policy is focused on making rental prices affordable to young people, rather than owning homes.
Since Taipei residents own at least 70 percent of houses in the city, driving down property prices would spark an outcry, Ko said.
The Taipei City Government’s aim is to build 50,000 public housing units for rent, not for sale, he said.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“With a property price/income ratio of 15, people would have to sacrifice their basic needs for 15 years before they can afford a house,” Ko said yesterday in response to media queries on the sidelines of a styling competition sponsored by the Office of Commerce.
He added that while the nation’s steep real-estate prices is a problem waiting to be solved, policies to push down housing prices would require gradual implementation, and that “the first stage is to just put a roof over young people.”
During his policy address on Friday, Ko said that the city government had discounted the rental prices of its joint development buildings — buildings integrated with Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit stations — by 15 percent of the market value, because if the rental prices were made any lower, it would hurt property prices, thereby “bringing the construction sector down and spell Taiwan’s doom.”
Critics accuse Ko of reneging on his campaign promise to push for affordable house prices.
Ko said that rent and real-estate prices are correlated. He rejected allegations that he had made a rapid reversal on his housing policy, and denied that he had promised to push down property prices.
A review of Ko’s election campaign promises shows that they were based on building public housing for rent, for which he said the city government would issue rent subsidies.
The mayor had also made a plan to renovate the city’s more than 80,000 empty houses before renting them out to residents, to help release unused houses into the housing market.
However, Ko’s recent remarks about protecting the housing have still raised some eyebrows.
In an interview with students at Taipei Jianguo Municipal High School in February, Ko said he would seek to ban people from using a mortgage to buy a second house, as well as raise taxes on Taipei residents living in houses larger than 20 ping (66.1m2).
The remarks have led many to believe that Ko was in favor of driving down house prices.
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