Just another reason why you would rather stay in Canada than to move to Seoul. Recently, the Korean Government finished their yearly evaluation of all properties in all of Korea, where each apartment building is rated according to 80% of what the believed value is if you were to buy or sell where you live. Its an important and slightly stressful time for Koreans, because its what you pay your property tax based on; too high for your liking, and you're going to pay a fortune, too low, and you're grinning for the short-term, or at least until you decide to sell.
Now, I'm going to give you a quick rundown on my apartment, before I tell you the shocking statistic. My apartment is a two bedroom, one living room apartment, with one bath, a small kitchen, and backside glassed-in patio area. My apartment has been converted into a three-bedroom apartment, but it doesn't matter if you have a three bedroom or two bedroom- its what the actual space is. The two bedrooms in the apartment are small by North American standards - the smaller bedroom would be comparable to a bathroom - believe me, its small. The other fact is that my bathroom is about as old as the apartment is; it was built in the 80's; I don't know what the exact time was, but its certainly not a spring-chicken.
Its current market value? In Canadian dollars? 287,686.00 And if you aren't shocked at that, remember that its only 80% of the actual price; and its expected that if this apartment were to be sold, it would sell for over 315,000.
Enough said. Now I understand why the Korean men work over 12 hours a day; they need to just to afford the apartments. Oh, and lastly, when you buy an apartment, you need to pay 75% of the price upfront - usually in cash.
Yikes.