South Korea Housing Crisis

[Song Hong]

Apartment prices in South Korea's capital Seoul fell by more than 20 percent last year, the largest drop ever. The price decline was more than double the 10 percent drop in 2008 during the global financial crisis. Economists worry a continued decline could lead to a serious economic crisis and warn the issue is a global concern. Jack Barton reports from Seoul.

Kong Hyunsook's house has been on the market in Seoul for a year and a half, despite her already cutting the sale price by 15 percent.

KONG HYUNSOOK Seoul Homeowner "Now nobody is coming to see the house anymore because they are expecting the price to be more down."

It's not an unreasonable expectation given South Korea property prices have been falling at their fastest rate in two decades.

NO HEE-JUNG, Real Estate Agent, Midas "The current cause of the decline in the real estate market is interest rates."

South Korea's central bank says it's being cautious with rate increases given it sees the property market as a key risk to the economy, though it warns Korea is not alone.

RHEE CHANG-YONG, Governor, Bank of Korea "As a result, many emerging countries are now applying for the IMF's financial support programs and housing prices in major countries have adjusted by more than ten percent after a huge spike under the low inflation environment."

Other countries may be in the same boat, but South Korea seems to be sinking faster.

NO HEE-JUNG, Real Estate Agent, Midas "Overall, we can think that our country is more serious than foreign countries."

YANG JUNSOK, Professor of Economics, Catholic University of Korea "There is a concern with a lot of analysts that there is a potential for a collapse if the housing prices fall too much."

JACK BARTON Seoul "South Korea has one of the world's highest household debt levels so higher interest on home loans means less money to spend on consumer goods, a situation exacerbated by the fact many Koreans previously saw property as a safer investment than stocks and bonds."

YANG JUNSOK, Professor of Economics, Catholic University of Korea "That's also creating a lot of nervousness on the part of households who were depending on house prices remaining high to finance their post retirement, so that is also another factor cutting down consumption."

A Bank of Korea stress test estimates banks could still withstand a further 15 percent fall in apartment prices over the next three years. A sobering assessment given that last year alone apartment prices in the capital fell by more than 22 percent. Jack Barton, CGTN, Seoul.

South Korea Housing Crisis: Experts warn of overall economic crisis as property prices continue to fall

Apartment prices in South Korea's capital Seoul fell by more than 20 percent last year, the largest drop ever. The price decline was more than double the 10 percent drop in 2008 during the global financial crisis. Economists worry a continued decline could lead to a serious economic crisis and...

news.cgtn.com

 

[Mista]

Not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it doesn't spark a financial crisis. May help with their rock bottom fertility rate.

Meanwhile in alternate universe Singapore, property prices have been defying the gravity of rising interest rates. Despite additional cooling measures and an increase in property taxes, prices continue to grow. People are understandably frustrated.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/property/what-property-bubble-why-singapore-may-be-outlier

 

[MH.Yang]

Not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it doesn't spark a financial crisis. May help with their rock bottom fertility rate.

Meanwhile in alternate universe Singapore, property prices have been defying the gravity of rising interest rates. Despite additional cooling measures and an increase in property taxes, prices continue to grow. People are understandably frustrated.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/property/what-property-bubble-why-singapore-may-be-outlier

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The main reason for the low fertility rate in the three East Asian countries is the low willingness of women to have children.

There are only two ways to solve this problem, one is to increase women's willingness to have children. The second is to destroy women's monopoly on reproductive rights.

The most effective way to increase women's willingness to have children is to reduce their expected years of education. Countries with higher expected years of education have lower fertility rates. But this is not in line with the political correctness of the three East Asian countries, so it is not operational. So I suggest that we increase the population growth rate by breaking the monopoly of women on reproductive rights.

We can legalize the trading of sperm and eggs. Commercialize in vitro fertilization technology. At the same time, allowing the surrogacy industry in Eastern Europe to enter the domestic market.

In this way, anyone can conceive independently, eliminate sperm and eggs containing inferior genes, control the gender and number of babies, eliminate genetic disease gene fragments, and so on. Most importantly, the cost of doing so is likely to be lower than the cost of traditional marriage.

There is another benefit for countries like South Korea that are plagued by extreme feminist organizations. These extreme feminist organizations will completely lose their soil for survival.