THE NEIGHBOURHOOD around Nowon station, on the north-eastern edge of Seoul, looks much like any other suburb of South Korea's capital. Multi-storey buildings house cramming schools, coffee shops and fast-food stalls that sell tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) to hungry students during their short study breaks. There is a multi-screen cinema and a cluster of banks. Hole-in-the-wall shops peddle vegetables and pickles. "It's a great place for bringing up children," says a contented local mother. "Good schools, low crime, few distractions." Unassuming districts like Nowon have caught the full blast of a house-price boom that is reverberating around Seoul. In the second half of last year the price of an average family flat in the surrounding apartment complexes rose by around 30%, sending them beyond the reach of many aspiring first-time buyers. Apartment prices in Seoul as a whole rose by 58% in the three years to December 2020, according to KB Kookmin, a bank. The price of the average flat in the city is about 16 times the median household income, compared with around 12 in London.
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