TAIPEI, April 17 (Xinhua) - Taiwan's house price to income ratio for the third quarter of 2016 hit a record high of 9.35, according to the housing affordability data released by Taiwan's construction and planning authority Monday.
The data means it takes more than nine years' wages to buy the cheapest house on the island.
The overall mortgage burden for people in Taiwan was 38.49 percent in the third quarter last year, up 2.4 percentage points compared with the same period in 2015, meaning people spend almost 40 percent of their disposable income on mortgage payments.
Across Taiwan, the degrees of housing affordability were "reasonable" in only five out of the 20 counties and cities in the third quarter of last year, and two major cities - Taipei and New Taipei had "excessively low" affordability, the data indicated.
