Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Enigma]

I live in a small city on the coast of Gangwondo (Donghae, about 100,000 people) and I've noticed at least 35 or 40 new full-size apartment buildings being built in the city over the last few months (there could be more, that's just the ones I've seen). That's a huge amount of capacity to add to one small city in such a short time, and so I'm just wondering if the same thing is happening across Korea.
It just seems that with the global economy in the tank (and getting worse, regardless of what the politicians say), it's a little ambitious to be building this many new units. Although the Korean economy has been spared many of the problems occurring in many of the other developed countries, if this level of building is going on across the country, and the Korean economy takes a big hit, when the housing bubble here corrects it's going to cause one hell of a mess.

[fosterman]

construction is what moves the economy
plus, politicians are the ones who profit from the back door deals from the construction companies, they make all their money years before the houses are put to market, the ones left holding the bag are the consumers
it's a cycle which works out best for the guys at the top and all the suppliers of the materials, but of course works out bad for the koreans who got sucked into buying something with all the celebrity endorsements and flash marketing. suckers born every minute. and politicians no that all to well.

Korea will always keep building, because there will always be a sucker waiting to lose his money. or make some money.

[Emark]

My friend in China is echoing hat I have read in some articles I have and seen on some documentaries. China's building boom is creating empty buildings. When the loans used to create those buildings can't get paid, there will be a collapse similar to that of the "housing bubble" in the US a few years back. The chinese are just filling the air full of words of false hope There isn't any way those places will get filled unless there is a massive population infusion and a giant leap of financial gain to the general populace allowing everyone to "level-up" into better standards of housing.

Korea is probably going to follow the same pattern. No big deal. What can anyone do? The Americans continuously, over and over made the same mortal error of following banks and fiat currencies. I don't see any country in the world actually observing and learning from those mistakes.

Isn't hope grand?

[ajosshi]

[LuckyNomad]

Well as for the East Sea Coast, it has only recently been opened up by highways and maybe soon railways too. The rich of Seoul might be in the mood to buy an apartment on the coast for weekends and summers. It drives up the price for everyone else though like it did in my city.

I see a lot of construction too. Part of it may be that a lot of buildings are quite old. Apartment buildings that were built 30 years ago look pretty shoddy. Especially the exteriors. The elevators are small and slow. The apartments don't have the videophones. Etc. When couples get married they don't want to move into the old apartments. They want modern, classy, apartments that they can brag about to their friends.
Also more and more Koreans do not want to live in a 3 or 4 generation household anymore. They want to leave mom and dad and grandma.

[tideout]

In terms of housing bubbles, I believe Seoul is Phoenix in the making.

The underlying economic issues for many Koreans is not very different from what Americans were doing 5-6 years ago. Tons of debt and borrowing beyond their means.

When people start talking like housing is "certain" to be profitable as if it's gravity you know something's going on beyond financial planning.

In addition to the above, don't forget that Korea's not invincible from economic problems - IMF crisis of '97, population in decline and some real vulnerability to global slowdown.

I don't want to overstate it but there are real issues out there.

[Sireno]

Construction is what runs this economy. Unlike all other industrialized nations this one is different in that it continues to be powered by construction. I don't think it's a problem or will cause one either. I'm currently reading this book http://www.amazon.com/Breakout-Nations-Pursuit-Economic-Miracles/dp/0393080269 this info comes from the book.

[bojangles]

I heard that during the fukashima disaster they made emergency plans for evacuating TOKYO. Where is a nation of people going to go? To China Ghost cities of course. And imagine the economic power of Japan and china combined! Likewisie in Korea. Japan is a sinking ship.

[slothrop]

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[Julius]

[slothrop]

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[Weigookin74]

A lot of towns until recently had a supply of old dumpy run down buildings. Think there was some kind of building moratorium in place during the 2000's. So, now, there are newer buildings being bult. But they shouldn't build beyond demand. Never a good idea. Maybe there will be some cheap apartments on the market. lol Hopefully these buildings will be built to last. They are nicer than what was before. Prior buildings were 3rd worldish and had piss poor construction quality.

[sojusucks]

[minos]

[shostahoosier]

I have just the opposite problem in my village of about 5,000 people.

There is a housing shortage, but no one wants to build anything because they're worried that people will just move to the city anyway.