Well, Money Today — quoting National Statistical Office stats — reports that if all the land assets in Korea were to be sold, you could by all of Canada twice and still have money left over.
To attach some numbers to that, Korea’s total land assets are worth about US$3.58 trillion, while Canada’s are worth US$1.56 trillion. Purchase Canada twice, and you’d still have US$462 billion to buy yourself something pretty, like a US bank or major Detroit auto company.
Between the many Koreans who want to immigrate to the West and all the Canadians that seem to end up in Korea, I should think there’s room to make a deal here.
Korea’s total land value was 3.7 times the country’s GDP, a higher value than in other major nations like France (3 times GDP), the United States (2.8 times GNP), Australia (2.8 times GNP) and Japan (2.8 times GNP).
Interestingly — OK, not really interestingly — Seoul land prices accounted for over 30% of Korea’s total. What is rather interesting, though, is that land values in Gyeonggi-do, Chungcheongnam-do and Incheon have climbed over 100% since 2003. Also, land plots — which make up in area only 2.6% of Korea’s total land acreage — accounted for 53.1% of the cost of Korea’s total land value, while mountains and forests — which make up 64.8% of total acreage — account for only 6.4% of total land value.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
mountains and forests — which make up 64.8% of total acreage — account for only 6.4% of total land value.
I’ve always thought that, in terms of real-estate value, the mountains – and coastlines, for that matter – are wasted in Korea. Most cities are compressed around local waterways – much as I imagine they used to be 1000 years ago – with the rest of the flat land used for farming. Yet how often do you see a house on a ridge or nestled on a mountainside? The land is worth a pittance, so it would be cheap to build a nice comfy hip-roofed home, with a magnificent view over (insert favorite city/scenic valley/waterway/coast).
Not sure why this is, but I suspect because it simply isn’t done, so no-one does it. And maybe it’s a carry on from the past. The coast used to be a place of relative danger, what with pirates and the Japanese occasionally landing for plunder. (Go down to the Goheung Peninsular, or any other coast in the south and see how much value seaside real-estate has these days – zilch.) And the mountains were simply not practical for living, not if you wanted to grow rice and trade. Also, it would have been much safer to huddle together in the river valleys with the neighbours, within running distance of the nearest stone fort.
You might say that an isolated household goes against the most fundamental Korean instinct: stay with the group and stay safe. That’s my theory anyway.
If I was intending on settling down in Korea I’d seriously think about building a cottage by the ocean. There’s some pretty magic spots out there that have been ignored by the locals.
In Pyeongchang-dong, a lot. But your point is still well taken.
Actually, the under-utilization of the mountainsides is another reason to make that land and population deal with Canada — at least you can be rest assured that at least some of those Canadians will put the hillsides to horticulturally productive use.
Weed.
Korean real estate works on the “Greater Fool Theory” — that there is some other sucker (a Korean) who will buy your property for the prices here. So Koreans are blocked from emigration to Canada en masse by the unavailability of people interested in migrating to Korea and purchasing these properties.
I know that the North Side of Nam San has an ordinance relating to it that doesn’t allow any building on the side of it to be higher than the ring road, to preserve the view of the mountain from afar. The Hilton, the Philips building and a church are the only three structures that seem to have been given an exemption. Seeing as most of the mountains in Seoul are used as parks and green spaces it wouldn’t surprise me if there are similar ordinances in effect elsewhere.
#4 – Brandon is right. Not everybody would care to live in Canada – no accounting for taste, I guess – but I don’t know a hell of a lot of Canadians who are packing up, buying homes, and moving to Korea for the long haul. Rumor has it there is more than just the odd Korean doing exactly what Canadians aren’t.
Call me crazy, but I’d think I’d rather take three hundred grand and buy a nice four bedroom home with a yard and maybe a pool in metro Montreal or Ottawa, instead of purchasing a closet-sized apartment in “charming”, polluted, overcrowded Incheon. (Or, if you prefer, Suwon, Pyeongtaek, Dongducheon, or Cheonan/Asan.) For those who are more into getting the most bang for their buck in terms of “land” value, all the power to you!
Having said that, a house around a place like Gapyeong might be alright in terms of quality of life, not to mention a decent investment.
You better double-check those housing prices. 300K might get you four bedrooms and a pool in Podunk but not in popular metro areas like Montreal or Ottawa.
As long as we’re on the topic…….
http://www.realtor.com/
This’ll come in handy.
http://maps.huge.info/zip.htm
“You better double-check those housing prices. 300K might get you four bedrooms and a pool in Podunk but not in popular metro areas like Montreal or Ottawa.”
There are some good deals in those cities in which you can buy a small older house with bad plumbing, or a brand new 700sqf closet sized condo for 300K. But what will you do for a job? The economies of Ontario and Quebec are in the dumpsters. There are no good jobs, and pretty soon, there will be 100,000 new unemployed people forming a line, as the automotive industry (the biggest industry) is collapsing.
Things are even worse in the States, as half priced houses can’t find buyers. Just because it’s half price, it doesn’t even mean US housing market is bottomed out.
If you’re viewing this strictly through investment, Korea makes far more sense. Once the world economy comes back, Korean real estate will once again go up. Korea’s small land area coupled with a large population will insure that.
On the other hand, North American housing market.. I’m not so sure that it will ever see another increase that we have been seeing for the last 10 years.. at least not for a long time..
I always assumed the lack of development in mountainous areas implied some kind of state ownership of the land (ala National Forests in the western US). Does anyone know how land ownership is broken down in a largely rural province like Kangwon-do?
A lot of would-be sellers are holding off because they don’t want to or can’t afford to lose money on the sale. In my area, housing prices rose an average of 45% over the last five years but have dropped only 12% in the past six months.
I hope we don’t see another bubble. A healthy residential housing market is about homes for people, not speculative wealth. A slow, steady increase is better. My grandparents’ and my parents’ generations were able to retire comfortably on secure pensions in homes whose mortages were paid off. Baby boomers, Tweeners, and GenXers won’t be so well-off.
Reading stories of six-figured income earners laid off and reduced to bankruptcy, I am reminded of sage wisdom that to a certain extent, it’s not what you earn but how you spend it that determines your financial security.
“If you’re viewing this strictly through investment, Korea makes far more sense. Once the world economy comes back, Korean real estate will once again go up. Korea’s small land area coupled with a large population will insure that.”
Hi cm, not sure what sorta time frame you have in mind, but you might want to check on this. I kinda remember reading somewhere on the internets that because Koreans aren’t producing enough babies, real esate will have to come down in price eventually.
Apples and oranges. South Korea is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Canada is 100 times larger than South Korea and has a smaller population.
I am the only one who finds it amusing that somebody would want to move to Ottawa of all places in the first place?
One thing should be pointed out in this discussion, Korea’s land use, or zoning, laws. Most of them require decided land to be used to grow rice, and NOTHING else. Farmers cannot even change crops (which BTW is part of the farmer’s real free trade protest, its not free trade per se its the fact Korean law dictates they must farm an unprofitable crop).
Rules like this limit the supply available to residential building, and partly why you end up with dense cities and egg crate apartment buildings, and obviously in turn why you get high property prices.
#11 – “You better double-check those housing prices. 300K might get you four bedrooms and a pool in Podunk but not in popular metro areas like Montreal or Ottawa.”
Just did. Plenty of decent places to be had, some just a 15 or 20 minute commute from downtown. Vancouver, Calgary, or Toronto would be a different story, but plenty of good deals around the Ottawa or Montreal areas.
#9 – “If you’re viewing this strictly through investment, Korea makes far more sense.”
If you’re looking more at quality of life (i.e. actually living in a nice home) it doesn’t.
“I am the only one who finds it amusing that somebody would want to move to Ottawa of all places in the first place?”
Sure, Hull is just a few minutes walk away and rent there is only a 1/3 of that in Ottawa.
I’ve read the OEDC report/ppt, done by a Korean of course and yes creative statistics have been used. Just to put it into perspective, the report included only improved land values (minus the approx improvements on the land) so the vast swaths of unimproved land in Canada and Korea were not counted towards total land value. Well after quickly checking with stats can I have found that the total value of “improved” and “unimproved” “agricultural land” in Canada is a nice total of 108,724,371,200 CND. Oh well maybe we can buy a couple of Korea’s North and South!
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