New Apartment Sales Surge in August
The number of new apartments sold nationwide in August increased by a large margin from a year ago, despite a typical summer slowdown in the real estate market.
The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said on Sunday that a total of 14,217 new apartments were sold across the country in August, up 17 percent from 12,146 in August 2008.
Gyeonggi Province accounted for 66 percent of the apartment sales with 4,210, followed by Daejeon with 3,315. North Chungcheong Province and Daegu came in third and fourth with 1,606 and 1,250 sales, respectively.
However, due to the economic downturn that began in the latter half of last year, the total supply of new houses from the private construction sector fell to 96,498 units between January and August this year, a mere 55 percent of the 170,663 supplied during the same period last year. Some 56,709 houses were supplied in the Seoul metropolitan area, just 65 percent of 87,354 a year ago.