Taipei real estate prices; sell gold buy expensive real estate

Today on a trip to Carrefour (the Franco-Sino version of Walmart) we saw a lady passing out brochures for a condo for sale. The lady wasn't a real estate agent, more like a street sweeper who was getting paid to hand out brochures to anyone she can. (When I first came to Taiwan they used to pass out the advertisements to only to the people with cars, now they give them to the scooters. Last month I saw them passing out brochures to college students..it's just ridiculous.)
Here is page from the brochure

Brochure detailing the size and the layout of the condo. 

The 39 ping house was $14,000,000NT which is 1,387 square feet for $462,000 USD or 333 US per square foot. The 48 ping house was $18,000,000NT which is 1,705 square feet for 594,000 USD or 322 US per square foot.

These prices are just insane. I ask my Taiwanese friends what is a high paying salary in Taiwan, they say it's 100,000NT a month or an annual US salary of around $39,603USD. Honestly, I think that number is high - according this site the GDP per capita of Taipei is $48,400 USD. Now, to me that number is ridiculously high. There are definitely very wealthy Taiwanese people who are skewing this statistic and I am highly skeptical of that number, but I know plenty of people living on 500USD to 1,100 USD a month. Yet, for the hell of  it let's use the $48,400 as the our annual salary. In order to buy a 1,387 square foot apartment you have to pay 9.5X your salary! 

There are plenty of empty luxury apartments all over Taipei. I really don't get why these apartments are so freaking expensive.

 

Brochure explaining real estate is a better investment than god

 According to this - if you want to save the value of your currency you need to purchase real estate. The price of everything is going up: electricity, water, food - so the best way to protect yourself is to buy your own piece of real estate.  So in this advertisement they are trying to scare people into purchasing real estate to protect the value of their savings.  For whatever reason they say buying real estate is a better protector than gold. Their appeals to fear really irks me.  I'd bet in 10 years from now, most people who purchase these houses will not be happy with their "investment."