Areas in Seoul, other than Gangnam

I recently read an article which gives information about the recent trend of house prices in Seoul. According to the article, prices of small homes, homes in areas other than Gangnam (southeastern Seoul), and zones for urban redevelopment, which were unpopular until as recently as two to three years ago, are steeply rising as investors scramble to jump into the foray. In the meantime, homes in “bubble seven areas” which led home price gains, large sized home, and homes for reconstruction are quickly losing popularity in the face of a string of regulations, depressing their prices. The market trend has completely been reversed.

Before we talk about the home price differences among areas in Seoul – simply, Gangnam and not-Gangnam -, we should focus at Gangnam and study about it, first. Through many years, Gangnam and areas near Gangnam have been the No.1 district in Seoul. More concretely, Gangnam station district, Jamsil station district, MyungDong, ShinChon and such areas have been extremely popular and the home prices and business building prices in these areas were extremely high. As many people do know, the reason is quite simple. It is because of millions of people’s desire to settle in these areas. And the reason why many people want to settle in these areas is because these areas have lots of businesses and conveniences. In fact, millions of people come to these places everyday for various reasons. They come to work, study, sightseeing, hanging around and go home. All these popularities haven’t been settled in short period of time. It took many years to develop these areas and lots of years have past since these areas have become the heart of the Metropolis, which means that these areas will go on developing and popularizing unless there are some major events that can block them developing. However, the popularity of these areas has brought a serious gap between ‘Gangnam’s and ‘not-Gangnam’s.

The Korean government has done lots of thing to reduce the gap between ‘Gangnam’s and ‘not-Gangnam’s in Seoul. Several regulations were carried out to discourage the overdevelopment in ‘Gangnam’ areas. Since the home prices and business building prices in ‘Gangnam’s have decreased due to several regulations so far, it seems that the government’s actions are working. However, thing aren’t actually following the government’s will. Even though the prices have decreased a bit, it is not a critical decrease. In fact, more and more people are still actually coming to Gangnam areas for various reasons. Statistics cannot show the reality truly. Gangnam is Gangnam. It cannot be fallen in a short period time. And also, as a matter of fact, the government is making a mistake. Why would they want to discourage the development and well-going of Gangnam? It is certainly unreasonable. It they want to reduce the gap, they can certainly design some good places dealing with lots of businesses and entertainments in areas other than Gangnam. Is the way to reduce the gap is to discourage Gangnam? Absolutely no.



Reference : http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSOD&mid=sec&sid1=108&oid=014&aid=0001961192


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