Buying an apartment in Taiwan (cost, country, place, people)
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I was wondering if it’s possible for an owner to buy an apartment in Taiwan (more specifically Taipei). Are there any significant hurdles? Also, what is the average cost of a one bedroom apartment in Taipei?
I don't know much but my friends and family who have invested in property in Taiwan are not buying in Taipei now and advise me against buying now. That's all I know.
I don't know much but my friends and family who have invested in property in Taiwan are not buying in Taipei now and advise me against buying now. That's all I know.
Average cost of an apartment in Taipei is 450,000-600,000 NTD per ping. You'll be paying around US$1,000,000 for anything decent. Property taxes are cheap. We pay US$1,000 per year for an apartment worth US$1,500,000.
Insurance is cheap.
Prices were on a slow downward trend but my understanding is they're trending up again because so many people from Hong Kong are moving to Taiwan. Taiwanese business owners returning from China have also been buying more than normal. Probably not a good time to buy because the long-term trend/demographics all point towards lower prices and this upward blip in prices is only temporary.
You can buy an apartment without an assigned parking space but that affects resale significantly. Problem is a parking space can add US$30,000 to the price of the apartment.
Another problem is the quoted floor space (in pings) includes public space so if they say 45 pings you may only be getting 35 livable pings. This is especially a problem with newer apartments as they seem to be fudging the actual living space numbers by lumping in more public space than in the past.
What's particularly odd about Taiwan real estate is a lot of new buildings stand largely empty because so many apartments have been bought as investments rather than to live in.
The last time I bought an apartment in Taipei was in the middle of the SARS pandemic. It was a great time to buy. Sellers thought it was the end of the world and wanted to cash out before the bottom fell out. Maybe this coronavirus will provide a similar buying opportunity.
If you plan to live in the apartment, then if you want to buy, buy. If you plan to rent it out, Taipei was one of the highest discrepancies between rental prices and buying places of any place I have ever lived. You can rent a nice place in Tapei for less than US$1,000 per month (in the city, not out in the suburbs), but you'd be hard-pressed to buy a similar sized place for less than $1,500 mortgage+taxes+insurance+management fees, plus you have to make a substantial down payment.
I don't understand the rental market at all, real-estate prices go up every year, but rents hardly change (unless the owner does some significant improvement). My rent went down ~US$40 per month last year :-/ A friend of mine has been in the same apartment for 5 years without a rental increase.
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