It’s no use even if the mortgage burden rate is reduced! When buying a house in Shuangbei, you still have to use half of your income to pay the mortgage

The mortgage burden rate in Taiwan and the six major cities dropped from 44.30% to 41.46%, a decrease of 2.84 percentage points. (Provided by CITIC Housing)

Since the central bank launched the seventh wave of selective credit controls in 2024, the housing market has gradually cooled down, housing price increases have slowed, and people's housing affordability has also improved. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, comparing the changes in the mortgage burden rate in Taiwan and the six cities between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2026, it can be found that the mortgage burden rate in Taiwan has dropped from 44.30% to 41.46%, a decrease of 2.84 percentage points.

Further observing the performance of the six cities, Taipei City experienced the largest decrease, reaching 4.41 percentage points, followed by Tainan City at 3.43 percentage points, and Taichung City at 3.09 percentage points.

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Zhuang Simin, deputy manager of CITIC Housing Research and Exhibition Office, pointed out that the base period of Taipei housing prices is relatively high, and the mortgage burden rate has long been the highest among the six cities. Therefore, when the housing price growth slows down, the overall affordability rate may change significantly. As for Taichung and Tainan, in the past, the real estate market was driven by construction themes, technology themes, and market craze. Housing prices rose astonishingly. Now, due to the impact of credit controls, investment demand has almost disappeared. The market has returned to rationality, and owner-occupiers are not willing to chase prices. The housing price growth has converged significantly. In some areas, price corrections have even occurred, and the mortgage burden rate has naturally fallen.

However, although the mortgage burden rate has dropped, why do most people still feel that they cannot afford to buy a house? In this regard, Zhuang Simin said that the improvement in the mortgage burden rate does not mean that the threshold for purchasing a house has dropped to a level that most families can easily afford. Currently, Taiwan's mortgage burden rate is 41.46%, which is still at a "low affordability" level. Among them, the mortgage burden rate in Shuangbei is more than 50%, which means that the average family has to spend more than half of their disposable income to pay the mortgage, which shows the heavy pressure of buying a house. Moreover, the current housing prices in Taiwan are still relatively high, and the down payment of several million yuan is still the biggest difficulty for young people and first-time homebuyers.

Coupled with the tightening of bank mortgage quotas and stricter review, some people may also face the dilemma of loan ratios being lower than expected, having to increase self-prepared funds, or bearing higher mortgage interest rates, further increasing the difficulty of purchasing a home.

Zhuang Simin said that for people to truly afford housing, the key is to increase their income. In recent years, salary growth has been concentrated in the technology industry. Salaries in many traditional industries are still quite meager. The salary gap between different industries continues to widen, which also further divides the groups between those who can "afford" and those who "cannot afford".

She suggested that in addition to continuing to improve the housing market, the government should also focus on industrial upgrading, balancing industrial development, and increasing labor wages. Only by allowing wage growth to catch up with housing prices can we fundamentally improve people's housing affordability and achieve their housing goals.