Korea to crack down on speculative property investments by foreigners

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The country's land ministry, the justice ministry and other agencies said Thursday they will launch an investigation into speculative real estate investments made by foreigners.

The authorities also plan to designate regions where restrictions will be imposed of real estate transactions by foreigners, and compile statistics on foreign ownership of properties here to better tackle speculative investments.

The investigation will be carried out into 10,000 cases suspected to be speculative, out of 20,000 property transactions by foreigners between 2020 and May 2022.

The portion of annual property transactions by foreigners here accounts for less than 1 percent of the total, but their transactions have been on the rise, reaching around 8,500 per year on average in 2020 and 2021, a sharp rise from some 7,000 deals between 2017 and 2019.

There have also been complaints from local citizens that restrictions on foreigners' property transactions are relatively lax.

Going forward, the land ministry said it plans to compile detailed data on their property transactions next year to stem any potential speculative investments. (Yonhap)

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