This undated photo shows apartments in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, June 23 (Korea Bizwire) — The country’s land ministry, the justice ministry and other agencies on Thursday said they will launch an investigation into foreigners’ speculative real estate investments.
The authorities also plan to designate regions where real estate transactions by foreigners will be restricted and compile statistics on foreign ownership of properties here to better tackle speculative investments.
The probe will be carried out on some 10,000 cases suspected to be speculative, out of 20,000 property transactions by foreigners between 2020 and May 2022.
The portion of annual property transactions by foreigners here accounts for less than 1 percent of the total, but their transactions have been on the rise, reaching around 8,500 per year on average in 2020 and 2021, a sharp rise from some 7,000 deals between 2017 and 2019.
There also have been outcries from local citizens that there are relatively lax restrictions on foreigners’ property transactions.
Going forward, the land ministry said it plans to compile detailed data on their property transactions next year to stem any potential speculative property investments.
(Yonhap)
