Guess I won’t be living in Bukchon anytime soon…

September 7, 2012 by 10 Comments

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According to the Chosun Ilbo, the heads of major Korean corporations and their relatives have been purchasing Korean traditional homes, or hanok, in the Bukchon neighborhood, driving up real estate prices. One long-time resident told the paper if you don’t have 1 billion won, you can’t buy a home here. As many of the corporate types moving in are buying hanok as second homes, the neighborhood’s atmosphere is changing since a lot of the homes are empty much of the time.

The rise in real estate prices has also driven up rents for local craftsmen who run workshops in the neighborhood.

Note about photo: Taken on my lunch hour Wednesday from the small elevated parking lot atop 31 Gahoe-dong.

Filed Under: Cityscapes, Korean Traditional Architecture, Seoul Tagged With: ,

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  • http://busanhaps@gmail.com Bobby McGill

    Nice shot. Puffy clouds always a plus.

    • Robert Koehler

      I’m partial to puffy clouds myself.

  • http://www.monster-island.net kushibo

    In the little fantasy that plays in my head, my own industrial apartment gets “redeveloped” and I sell whatever results. With the profits I go buy something nice and charming somewhere else. I’d thought of buying a hanok or two, but I guess that plan is now out the window.

    • Robert Koehler

      Well, I suppose that depends on who buys your apartment.

      • http://www.monster-island.net kushibo

        Maybe I can do a trade: my three-decade-old concrete box for their century-old wooden box.

  • Joel

    ~ $1 million? Curious. Any way to find out property values here? I was biking around the foothills of a mountain on an edge of Daejeon and found myself among some serious houses, huge 2-3 story with garages and yards, gated driveways. all fairly new, absolutely beautiful. (and pretty shocking) Incredibly curious as to what one of those goes for… not terribly hard to search property values in the states but how about here? Any public record?

    • Robert Koehler

      I’m sure the city halls and National Tax Service have that sort of info, but you could always go to the neighborhood real estate agents and ask.

  • corneadoug

    Well actually the government made laws so you cannot make much money when selling real estates.
    Basically they are getting a percentage so high on the sale that you usually make juste a bit more than the price you bought it.

  • Nate

    I hope to have Hanok somewhere in the country in the next 5 years. Seoul is lovely, but too expensive and too many people.