Pangyo may soon become hot new place to rent a home

Pangyo in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, has had huge popularity because it is easy to travel to Gangnam and there are many IT and high tech companies in its Techno Valley. And since the first preconstruction sales of apartments in Pangyo attracted huge demand 10 years ago, it still continues to enjoy rising housing demand.

While the rise in housing values in Pangyo show little sign of subsiding, the development of Daejang District, which is dubbed “little Pangyo,” is finally kicking in. The development plan stalled for more than a decade but the it is expected to pick up as early as later this year. This means that the preconstruction sales of the area will start in the second half of next year.

The part of Daejang District that will be in development covers 910,000 square meters (565 square miles) and is now undeveloped rural land surrounded by mountains.

In the early 2000s, there were big development plans for Daejang District as the development of Panygo attracted huge interest. In 2004, the Seongnam government and then the Korea Housing Corporation announced a plan to turn the neighborhood into Korea’s Beverly Hills.

But the development failed to move forward after the country was affected by the global crisis of late 2008a and the plan was completely scrapped two years later.

The residents of Daejang District then unsuccessfully attempted to develop the neighborhood, and the struggles that continued for more than 10 years finally regained direction when Seongnam Development Corporation announced in 2014 that it will get involved in the development.

Seongnam Development Corporation selected a consortium of six financial companies, including KEB Hana Bank, called Seongnam Tteul in March to lead the development.

The plan is to create a mini New City with 5,900 residential units where 16,000 people can live.

Of these, 5,700 units will be apartments in 15 complexes while 1,400 units will be offered as lease apartments for low-income households and the remaining 4,300 will be sold off to homebuyers. Among the 4,300 units, 74 percent will be 85 square meters or smaller.

Seongnam Tteul has already started its process of compensating the land owners and selling the land to private construction companies by the end of the year.

BY AHN JANG-WON [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]