Bad news for Taiwanese buyers: in most of the country, a family's yearly income no longer comes close to covering the price of a new home.

• In more than half of Taiwan's cities and counties, average new-home prices are far above what local families can afford.
• Taipei is the worst — the gap between what buyers can pay and what new homes cost runs to about NT$21 million; New Taipei and Taichung are also badly stretched.
• Even cheaper areas like Keelung, Chiayi and Changhua now have incomes that can't keep up with local new-build prices.
• A few places buck the trend — Hsinchu County, Hualien, Yunlin and Taoyuan — mainly because incomes are higher or nearby towns stay cheap.
• Experts say most Taipei buyers aren't buying on salary at all; they already own property or are tech workers sitting on stock gains.

Outlook: Home prices are unlikely to drop soon, so affordability will only improve if wages rise and Taiwan's weaker service-sector economy catches up.