Taoyuan Nights

Some numbers from Saturday’s Taipei Times…

1. Taiwan has at least 1 million houses that are sitting empty presently.

2. Taiwanese house prices rose 50% in the last few years, while wages rose 2% (I don’t recall the timeframe mentioned in the article – it doesn’t really matter with figures like these).

Now unless the population jumps 3-4 million in the next few months, I can see that 50% rise turning into a corresponding 33% fall. However, since correcting markets tend to overshoot… and since the market started out pretty expensive… we should expect a bigger drop.