<Anchor> This is a
friendly economic time. Today (18th) I will be with reporter Kim Hye-min. Recently, the number of foreigners buying Korean real estate has been increasing.
<Reporter>
The proportion of foreigners who purchase real estate in Korea has been increasing since 2010. Let's look at the percentage of foreigners who bought domestic real estate by year.
It peaked at 0.69% in 2019 from 0.2% in 2010. Then there is the corona effect. After a slight decline last year, it surged again in the first half of this year.
So, in which countries did the people buy the land? China, the United States and Canada remain in the top three.
Originally, more than half of the population was American, but in recent years the proportion of Chinese people has increased. The Chinese ranked third 10 years ago, but in the last five years, they account for 60-70%.
<Anchor>
Reporter Kim, then, where do foreigners mainly buy real estate?
<Reporter>
First of all, land owned by foreigners is 0.25% of the total area of Korea. This seems to be very small in proportion, but it is about half the size of Seoul and 20 times the size of Yeouido.
Based on the official price, it increased by about 1.3 times from 24.9 trillion won in 2011 to 31 trillion won in 2020 last year.
Gyeonggi-do is the region where foreigners bought the most, and Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, is the region where Chinese bought the most based on the cumulative basis in the first half of this year. Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, followed by Hwaseong-si.
Americans bought a lot of real estate in Pyeongtaek-si, Gyeonggi-do, Asan, Chungcheongnam-do, and Yangpyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do. Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, seems to have bought a lot because there is a US base, but coincidentally, Pyeongtaek is the number one region in the region where gap investment has increased over the past six months.
Siheung-si, Hwaseong-si, Anseong-si, Gyeyang, Incheon, and Bupyeong-do, Gyeonggi-do These are areas that have made a lot of gap investments. There are quite a few places where this gap investment area and the area where many foreigners have bought it coincide.
<Anchor>
Reporter Kim, the fact that Koreans are a little uncomfortable about foreign real estate investment in Korea is that recently, there have been a lot of regulations in order to acquire real estate. However, I think it is because of this view that foreigners are not subject to such restrictions. Are foreigners really not well regulated?
<Reporter>
Yes. Foreigners have much less restrictions than Koreans. Foreigners can acquire the certificate by reporting it, except for certain areas such as military facility protection areas or cultural properties protection areas.
The Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, a national research institute of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, published a data in May, which showed that foreigners' domestic housing purchases risk increasing the volatility of the housing market.
In particular, Koreans are subject to various loan regulations such as LTV and DTI. However, foreigners are free here if they raise funds through overseas banks.
In addition, if a Korean couple owns one house each, they become two house owners and are subject to capital gains tax.
Also, even if you write a financing plan, it is difficult to verify. Therefore, it has been pointed out that foreigners are relatively free to shop for real estate than Koreans.
<Anchor>
Then, there must be some movement to revise the relevant law or make a law, but is there any movement in the National Assembly that has to do this?
<Reporter>
Foreign speculation has been a problem since last year. At that time, a related bill was introduced in the National Assembly.
Therefore, several regulatory bills have been proposed, such as abolishing the system for reducing or exempting transfer tax to foreigners, or implementing a permit system instead of a reporting system when trading land in an area subject to adjustment.
However, either the standing committee has not yet properly discussed it or it has been abandoned. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport believes, "There are cases in which foreigners disrupt some markets, but they do not show significant enough to affect the overall market yet."
However, since only one transaction can affect the price of an apartment, it is pointed out that foreigners should minimize the need to buy a house with unknown funds to avoid regulations.
As in other countries, there are voices saying that when non-resident foreigners acquire real estate, it is necessary to introduce a regulation that imposes an empty house fee or prohibits the purchase of new houses.