Outstanding mortgage balance in May has hit a ten-year high. That’s despite a series of measures announced by the government to cap excessively high housing prices in Taiwan.
The central bank said on Saturday that outstanding housing loans in May totaled NT$5.725 trillion (US$193 billion). That’s up about NT$24.4 billion, or 0.43%, from April, and also up 4.78% from a year earlier.
In May, outstanding loans for building construction projects also rose NT$9.97 billion, or 0.65% from a month earlier to NT$1.554 trillion (about US$52 billion). The figure was 6.27% higher than a year earlier.
Market analysts said although the government has come up with measures, including a higher tax on homes in which owners do not live, loans related to property purchases and construction remained on the way to growth.
They said that’s why the central bank announced earlier this week that it will tighten its control on the local property market, focusing on capping the loan-to-value ratio – the percentage of a home’s value that a bank is allowed to lend to the property buyer.