Manya Rathore
Research expert covering India
Office real estate in South Korea - statistics & facts
A prominent feature of South Korean office real estate is officetels, a portmanteau of office and hotel. Officetels combine living and office spaces within a single unit and are seen as commercial real estate. They have been described as office spaces, studio apartments, urban studios, condominiums, and quasi-housing, but their true definition is as ambiguous as their legal status. Because of this peculiarity, it is difficult at times to distinguish between office and residential space in South Korea. Officetels were introduced in the 1980s to sell real estate when office space struggled to sell, and later deregulation allowed for them to be sold for both commercial and residential purposes. In 2021, over 300,000 units in the housing survey were considered non-residential buildings, such as officetels, in South Korea.
