S. Korea to crack down on speculative property investments by foreigners

South Korea’s land ministry, justice ministry, and other agencies vowed to investigate foreigners’ speculative real estate investments.

To better combat speculative investments, the authorities also intend to create zones where foreign real estate transactions will be prohibited and compile statistics on foreign ownership of properties in this country.

Out of 20,000 property transactions made by foreigners between 2020 and May 2022, the investigation will focus on about 10,000 cases that are considered speculative.

Foreigners only make up less than 1 percent of the annual real estate transactions here, but their transactions have been increasing from 7,000 per year between 2017 and 2019 to around 8,500 per year on average in 2020 and 2021.

Residents have also complained about the relatively lax restrictions on foreign property transactions.

To prevent future speculative real estate investments, the land ministry said it would gather comprehensive data on its property transactions the following year.