Housing Costs to Foreigners

The idea of globalization is that capital can flow freely and various entities can invest in various ventures in various countries resulting in the most efficient allocation of capital around the world, resulting in amazing increases in productivity and efficiency, resulting in dramatic increases in standards of living for everybody. That's about it in a nutshell.

But some countries put up barriers because they're afraid "foreign interests" will buy out their country. The US is just as guilty of this with our denying China from buying Unocal or our fear in the 80's that Japan was going to buy us out. But some countries feel their sovereignty is particularly threated when foreigners buy their land and therefore put very high taxes in place to prevent that from happening.



Something to think about the next time you want to buy some South Korean property.