Taoyuan Nights

News just in: Taiwanese inflation hits 6% (officially, of course – in the real world outside of politics, it’s far worse). Higher inflation means that lenders require higher interest rates to compensate them for the devaluation of the money they are lending – or they simply don’t lend. And higher interest rates mean… more problems [...]

Someone once said, history never repeats, but it does rhyme.
Here is what happened in Tokyo and Hong Kong when their property prices zoomed in the way that Taipei’s have. I believe that in ‘house-price-relative-to-earnings’ terms, Taipei has recently exceeded the heights of these graphs.
So, dear reader, I show you a possible – indeed, [...]

Let’s first take a look at the Taiwanese Government’s website about investing in Taiwan.
“Taiwan’s housing prices will rise 5-10% annually through 2010 at least, according to construction company and real estate brokerage executives speaking at a “real estate summit meeting” sponsored by the Taiwanese real estate magazine Zhu Zhan in early November. Some even [...]

Scott Sommers has trapped Taiwan’s bloggers on his blog. Now, it’s up to you to rescue them. Bravely find them on the page using your mouse, then lead the bloggers of Taiwan to freedom via the Escape Zone!

Click here to begin!

(Apologies, Scott… it was too tempting)

The Taipei Times refers to housing troubles in the north of Taiwan…
Finally, it seems like we’re there. The number of house sales is continuing to collapse (minus 15% taipei, minus 30% taichung in just one month) at what should be one of the best times of year for sales in most cultures. In other words, [...]