Income and Asset Dual Engines Take Shape
Li Tongrong notes that the biggest impact of AI capitalization on the housing market lies in changing how wealth is formed. The first force comes from high-paid tech newcomers, benefiting from semiconductor, advanced packaging, and server supply chain development, using high salaries and bonuses to strengthen first-time and trade-up purchasing power, supporting demand around tech clusters.
The second force is newly wealthy stock market gainers, realizing capital gains through tech stock appreciation, thereby generating demand to diversify risk and allocate to real estate. The former focuses on owner-occupation, while the latter emphasizes value preservation and inheritance, forming a dual-engine structure where high salary income supports owner-occupation and stock market gains drive allocation.
Dual-Core Property Acquisition Theory Emerges
Li Tongrong first proposed the dual-core property acquisition theory. The first core is tech industry living circles, including Hsinchu, Zhubei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, absorbing owner-occupation and trade-up demand driven by work, commuting, and family needs, with the long term depending on employment, income, and supply-demand balance.
The second core is the capital asset allocation circle. Core districts of Taipei City offer finance, commerce, education, medical, and corporate headquarters resources, with scarce land supply, attracting newly wealthy stock investors to deploy long-term assets. Tech cities buy living circles, the capital city deploys asset allocation; living and allocation demand will gradually diverge.
Home Price-to-Asset Ratio Gains Attention
The traditional home price-to-income ratio can hardly reflect the purchasing power of high-asset groups. Li Tongrong cites an example: for families with annual income of 300萬元 alike, if one holds 5,000萬元 in usable financial assets, their home-buying ability is completely different, thus proposing the home price-to-asset ratio, measuring the ratio of total home price to household usable net financial assets.
He stresses that the indicator does not replace the home price-to-income ratio. Ordinary families still need stable income to afford mortgages, but analyzing the high-end market requires observing income, assets, and loan terms together, avoiding judging affordability by salary alone.
Quality Premium Replaces Location Premium
The new generation of buyers places greater emphasis on smart management, energy efficiency, backup power, air quality, disaster resilience, and professional property management. The housing value formula has been upgraded to location scarcity, building quality, smart services, and long-term management capability, and developer competition will shift toward product and service strength.
Li Tongrong predicts that as AI wealth concentrates in specific groups, the housing market will move toward niche-led gains and mass divergence, with high-asset core homes and quality homes in tech clusters recovering first, while general oversupplied areas remain constrained, and tech stock volatility may inversely suppress demand for high-asset homes.