Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Koreans uneasy about Chinese real estate purchases here
A photo of apartment complexes in Seoul taken from Nam Mountain on Dec. 3 / Yonhap
By Anna J. Park
By Anna J. Park
While skyrocketing real estate prices ― particularly in Seoul ― have become a key social issue here, voices of criticism are rising against Chinese people's purchases of land and apartments here.
This comes as many Koreans from low- and middle-income brackets are struggling to buy their own homes due to a series of government loan regulations aimed at curbing property speculation.
According to statistics by the land ministry, the total amount of land in Korea owned by Chinese nationalities during the first six months this year increased by 2.6 percent from the end of last year.
As of the end of 2019, 251.6 square kilometers of land in Korea was owned by foreign nationals, an area about 56 times the size of Seoul's financial district Yeouido. Chinese-owned property accounted for 19.8 square kilometers of the total land, which is the second-highest among people of foreign nationalities, following Americans. From 2011 to 2019, the amount of land in Korea owned by Chinese nationals has increased by a whopping 14 times.
Chinese nationals are also active in acquiring homes and buildings in Korea, particularly in Seoul. The share of Chinese among all non-Koreans who bought apartments or other types of housing in Korea increased to 61.2 percent in August 2019, up from 32.5 percent in 2015.
Some Koreans started to express their uneasy feelings against the current situation, as they believe themselves to be subject to reverse discrimination when it comes to buying housing in the nation, due to ever-tightening regulations by the government regarding requirements for loan issuance. While local borrowers are faced with various layers of regulations on borrowing to purchase property, foreign nationals can effectively bypass the restrictions by financing property purchases with loans from overseas.
Against the backdrop, some even posted online petitions to Cheong Wa Dae's website in early November, urging the government to regulate real estate acquisitions here by Chinese nationals.
“While Korean people cannot own land in China, Chinese people can buy land in Korea. The amount of land owned by them is also fast increasing, and this could be a national problem in the long term,” the petition read, adding that more strict laws to regulate foreign buying of the land and housing is necessary to prevent land hoarding by Chinese nationals as already witnessed in Australia and Canada.
Principle of reciprocity needs to be respected
Responding to such critical voices, some lawmakers are attempting to revise laws to put restrictions on foreign buying of Korean land.
“Actually, we can say there's no restriction of foreigners buying land. According to international law, foreigners' real estate purchases should follow the principle of reciprocity. However, (while Koreans cannot buy Chinese land,) Chinese people can own Korean land,” Hong Suk-joon, lawmaker from the main opposition party, said in a recent interview with a local media outlet.
In China, there is no private ownership of land and people can only purchase the right to land leases for up to 70 years. Despite zero reciprocity from China, Chinese buying of Korean land has yet to be fully addressed in Korea.
“We also need further revision to the law to regulate apartments and other types of housing, in addition to land. It's not necessary to discriminate people according to their nationality, yet the current situation is that Koreans who need homes are faced with severe restrictions, while foreigners can buy without those rules as long as they can obtain the necessary money. The present situation is completely inequitable,” the lawmaker added.