제주특별자치도 부동산투자 촉진제도 및 규제제도에 관한 연구

제주도의 부동산 투자 촉진제도와 규제제도를 검토했다.

The basis of investment policy, globally recognized without exception, is to open up the possibilities of investment opportunity by keeping the door to investment open for foreigners. Each country offers various investment incentives to attract foreign investment, particularly when its own financial resources for local investment are not sufficient. In particular, it invites foreign investment by selling assets within its own territory, together with a grant of residence visa to foreign buyers, which is considered the most representative method. With respect to free choice of place of residence, that incentive is currently seen as a fairly appealing inducement to foreign investments.

After a recession in the real estate market in 2008, Korea introduced the incentive of residence visa in 2014, aiming at achieving goals to attract foreign investment and to sustain the market price of real estate. According to statistics, Jeju and Busan are shown to be among the most heavily invested areas for the purpose of residence by foreign investors, who also highly regard those two cities" investment value as real estate. In terms of the nationality of the investors, Northeast Asian nationals consists of a large portion of them: Jeju is preferred area by Chinese investors, while Busan is preferred by Japanese.

However, a foreign investment attraction policy on land runs a risk of causing domestic antipathy towards foreign investors at the time when the price of real estate soars, also having a negative impact on stability of the market price. As that necessarily results in a considerable gap between the initial policy goal and the outcome of that policy, which lead the government to take a certain action to regulate relevant activities.

The main point of this paper is that, considering the fact that the foreign investment policies on domestic real estate need be agile in their response to the economic cycle of real estate market, the sensible institutional strategies, such as stimulating investment at the time of economic downturn, or otherwise restricting acquisition in response to excessive investment at the time of business upturn, should be established. For that purpose, the paper first introduces “golden visas” and “golden passports”, and then, concerning the latter, reviews legitimacy of the restriction on the foreign investment under the Foreigner"s Land Acquisition Act and the ordinances of local governments.

Also, when observing the foreigners" land transactions in Korea, most of them were found to be made by Northeast Asian nationals, which will likely have a significant impact on the residential trends of people of three countries, including Korea, Japan, and China, which share the Yellow Sea as an inland sea.