Lowest Seoul Apartment Transactions in Two Years

The apartment transactions in Seoul for the month of January recorded their lowest in two years due to economic slowdown in the real estate market. On the other side, it was surveyed that transactions of apartments in Daejeon and Chungnam, which are potential places for the new administrative capital have recently become active.

According to the Korea Land Corporation on Friday, the number of apartment sales transactions in the regions of Seoul was 9,532 cases in January, thus recording their lowest in 24 months since January 2001. This barely reaches the half of last year’s January record of 20,162 cases.

Transactions in Seoul have been reducing since the fourth quarter of last year and are continuing their downward movement, recording 17,000 cases in October, 15,000 cases in November and 12,000 cases in December.

The number of transactions in Gyeonggi Province also couldn’t avoid this downward trend. The transactions, which reached around 40,000 cases last October, have been decreasing every month, recording 25,000 cases in November, 24,000 in December and 19,000 cases in January 2003.

Overall national transactions also greatly decreased. National transactions of apartments from March through April and September through October of last year exceeded 100,000 cases per month and showed prosperity but January’s transaction cases decreased to 68,595 cases, the lowest since February 2001.

On the contrary, apartment transactions only in Daejeon and Chungnam Province experienced vitality.

Transactions in Daejeon were 3,148 cases in January, a 52% increase compared to last December (2069 cases) and Chungnam Province recorded 2,508 cases.

Chang-Won Kim changkim@donga.com