The large number of old buildings in Taipei is making it more challenging to address the city’s rapidly aging population, a housing researcher said.
As of June, 11 of Taipei’s 12 districts were “super-aged,” meaning that at least 20 percent of their populations were aged 65 or older, housing researcher Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said on Saturday, citing Ministry of the Interior data.
Seventy-three percent of the city’s buildings are at least 30 years old, he added.
Photo: Taipei Times
“For every 1.37 homes in the city there is one home that was built before the 921 Earthquake in 1999,” he said.
Of the 368 administrative regions and districts nationwide, 191 — 51.9 percent of the total — are super-aged, he said.
While the aging population is a nationwide problem, the situation is particularly pronounced in Taipei, where 90 percent of districts are super-aged and half of the homes are more than 40 years old, he said.
As many as 18 percent of the city’s homes are 50 years old or older, and that number is growing, as urban renewal efforts fail to keep pace, Ho said.
“With housing prices so high, some buyers favor older buildings, which offer more space at lower prices,” he said. “Their mindset is that even though the buildings are 40 or 50 years old, they can live there and wait for the building to be replaced under an urban renewal project.”
Ministry data showed that of the 4,435 property sales and transfers in Taipei in the second quarter of this year, 2,829 were in buildings that were older than 30 years old, accounting for 63.79 percent of the total.
Of those 2,829 properties, 2,211 were more than 40 years old, accounting for nearly 78 percent of the aging properties sold, Ho said.
“One out of every 1.56 residential transfers in Taipei is an old property. Only 91 properties sold in the past five years were new, accounting for about 2.05 percent of the total,” he said. “That means that only one out of every 48.78 property transfers in Taipei is a new property.”
A building built before 1999 — when new construction standards were introduced to improve their earthquake resilience — is not necessarily dangerous to live in, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said.
“However, buildings constructed after that date follow stricter standards,” he said.
Andy Huang (黃舒衛), director of Landlord Representation Services at Colliers International Taiwan, said the situation is in a downward spiral, with older buildings decreasing in value as the financial capacity of elderly people declines as they get older, he said.
“Outside assistance is needed to balance the quality of life and financial situation of older people, especially amid this housing market,” he said. “Otherwise, social risks would worsen.”
To address the housing crisis faced by older people, Huang recommended integrating policies and resources, while accelerating the institutional reform of the rental market and social housing.
UKRAINE, NVIDIA: The US leader said the subject of Russia’s war had come up ‘very strongly,’ while Jenson Huang was hoping that the conversation was good Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US President Donald Trump had differing takes following their meeting in Busan, South Korea, yesterday. Xi said that the two sides should complete follow-up work as soon as possible to deliver tangible results that would provide “peace of mind” to China, the US and the rest of the world, while Trump hailed the “great success” of the talks. The two discussed trade, including a deal to reduce tariffs slapped on China for its role in the fentanyl trade, as well as cooperation in ending the war in Ukraine, among other issues, but they did not mention
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday lavished US President Donald Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties on his visit to Tokyo, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals. Takaichi — Japan’s first female prime minister — pulled out all the stops for Trump in her opening test on the international stage and even announced that she would nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. Trump has become increasingly focused on the Nobel since his return to power in January and claims to have ended several conflicts around the world,
REASSURANCE: The US said Taiwan’s interests would not be harmed during the talk and that it remains steadfast in its support for the nation, the foreign minister said US President Donald Trump on Friday said he would bring up Taiwan with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during a meeting on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in South Korea this week. “I will be talking about Taiwan [with Xi],” Trump told reporters before he departed for his trip to Asia, adding that he had “a lot of respect for Taiwan.” “We have a lot to talk about with President Xi, and he has a lot to talk about with us. I think we’ll have a good meeting,” Trump said. Taiwan has long been a contentious issue between the US and China.
GLOBAL PROJECT: Underseas cables ‘are the nervous system of democratic connectivity,’ which is under stress, Member of the European Parliament Rihards Kols said The government yesterday launched an initiative to promote global cooperation on improved security of undersea cables, following reported disruptions of such cables near Taiwan and around the world. The Management Initiative on International Undersea Cables aims to “bring together stakeholders, align standards, promote best practices and turn shared concerns into beneficial cooperation,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said at a seminar in Taipei. The project would be known as “RISK,” an acronym for risk mitigation, information sharing, systemic reform and knowledge building, he said at the seminar, titled “Taiwan-Europe Subsea Cable Security Cooperation Forum.” Taiwan sits at a vital junction on
RSS