Property for sale in Seoul

At first glance, Seoul appears to be a sprawling concrete mass of high-rise apartment buildings and modern buildings interspersed with historical treasures. But on closer investigation, the city can be divided into numerous smaller districts with their own distinct character. Get more information on property for sale in South Korea.

Views on the Seoul real estate :

Korea experienced a “lending bubble” in the mid-1990s spurred by the heavily indebted and over-extended chaebol. Following recovery from the 1998 recession, the country went through a “credit card bubble” in the early 2000s, with household debt reaching 62% of GDP at the end of 2003. Today, the nation is talking about a “real estate bubble” as apartments in the metropolitan area are priced around 40% above their intrinsic value.

According to an online real estate information provider, one in four properties in Seoul are now worth more than 600 million won ($630,000), and nearly 87% of properties in the affluent Gangnam area are priced over 600 million won. The number of properties worth at least 1 billion won numbered 50,845 in August 2005, but the number almost doubled to 109,166 in November 2006.

Believing that the rise in properties in Seoul prices was triggered more by speculation than by real demand, the government stepped in to curb the price rise and crack down on speculation. Since President Roh Moo-hyun took office in 2003, the government has taken measures on seven occasions to curb demand for high priced real estate, but unsuccessfully. In fact, real estate prices rose each time the government announced a new set of measure to stabilize property prices. Average property prices in Seoul have risen 36%, while prices in Gangnam have increased nearly 70% since the government vowed to fight against real estate speculation. Despite the concern that more drastic measures could impede the economic recovery in the short term, the government continued to apply stronger and more comprehensive anti-speculation measures.