SEOUL, KOREA - Despite the ongoing real estate market recession, Korea's affluent class still prefer real estate investment as the most profitable investment vehicle. As much as 62.4 percent of those with financial assets in excess of 1 billion won surveyed said they hold commercial properties.
According to a report "2013 Report on Korea's Wealthy Class" published by the KB Financial Group Management Research Institute, the number of the rich whose financial assets (not including houses and other real estate holdings) are more than 1 billion won was 163,000 as of the end of 2012. This is up 14.8 percent from the previous year when the figure was 142,000.
The survey results said 32.5 percent of the surveyed answered that domestic real estate investment would be the most profitable investment venue, followed by domestic stock investment (12.9%) and overseas real estate (11.8%).
Of the well to do, 62.4 percent said they own commercial properties such as stores. It was followed by apartments (39.3%) and office buildings (11.5%). Although their current average returns were 6.3 percent, the expected returns are 9.1 percent, signifying that they are optimistic about future stream of income from real estate investment.
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