Foreign-Owned Land Area Increases by 1.8%
Approximately 80,000 Housing Units Owned... Concentrated in the Seoul Metropolitan Area
Last year, the area of domestic land owned by foreigners increased by 1.8% compared to the previous year. By nationality, Americans owned more than half of the total foreign-owned land. In the case of domestic housing, foreigners accounted for about 0.4% of the total, with Chinese-owned households making up more than half.
According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on the 31st, as of the end of last year, the area of domestic land owned by foreigners was 264.01 million square meters, an increase of 1.8% from one year earlier. This accounts for 0.26% of the total land area, nearly reaching the size of Goyang City in Gyeonggi Province (268.1 million square meters). The official land price was 32.8867 trillion won, up 2.6% from the end of the previous year.
The area of domestic land owned by foreigners showed a high annual growth rate close to 10% during 2014-2015 but has maintained a moderate increase since 2016.
By nationality, Americans (53.4%, 140.95 million square meters) owned the most domestic land, followed by Chinese (7.8%, 20.66 million square meters), Europeans (7.2%, 19.03 million square meters), and Japanese (6.3%, 16.71 million square meters). The area owned by Americans increased by 2.2% (304 square meters) compared to the end of the previous year.
Foreign-owned land was most concentrated in Gyeonggi Province (18.4%, 48.61 million square meters). Other notable areas included Jeollanam-do (14.8%, 39.15 million square meters) and Gyeongsangbuk-do (14.0%, 36.89 million square meters).
By land use, other lands such as forest and farmland accounted for 67.4% (177.96 million square meters), factory sites 22.6% (59.04 million square meters), leisure sites 4.5% (11.82 million square meters), and residential land 4.2% (11.01 million square meters). By ownership type, foreign nationals of Korean descent accounted for 55.8%, foreign corporations 34.1%, and pure foreigners 9.9%.
In line with government policy tasks, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport also disclosed statistics on foreign ownership of housing for the first time. As of the end of last year, 81,626 foreigners owned a total of 83,512 housing units in Korea.
By nationality, Chinese owned the most with 44,889 households. This was followed by Americans (19,923 households), Canadians (5,810 households), Taiwanese (3,271 households), and Australians (1,740 households).
By housing type, multi-family housing accounted for 75,959 units (50,135 apartments, 25,824 row houses and multi-family houses), and single-family houses accounted for 7,553 units.
Foreign-owned housing was concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area (73.6%, 61,498 units). By city and province, Gyeonggi Province (37.8%, 31,582 units), Seoul (26.2%, 21,882 units), Incheon (9.6%, 8,034 units), and Chungcheongnam-do (5.4%, 4,518 units) ranked highest.
Within Gyeonggi Province, Bucheon City (5.0%, 4,202 units), Danwon-gu in Ansan City (3.1%, 2,549 units), Pyeongtaek City (2.8%, 2,345 units), and Siheung City (2.8%, 2,341 units) had significant distributions.
Single-homeowners accounted for the majority at 93.5% (76,334 households), two-home owners were 5.0% (4,121 people), and those owning three or more homes were 1.4% (1,171 people).
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