Foreign home ownership in S. Korea rises in H1

 SEOUL (Xinhua) -- The foreign home ownership in South Korea rose in the first half due to higher housing possession by Chinese people, government data showed Wednesday.    
The number of homes, possessed by foreign nationals, stood at 87,223 at the end of June, up 4.4 percent from six months earlier, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.    
It accounted for 0.46 percent of all houses in the country. Chinese held the largest share of the total foreign home ownership at 54.3 percent, followed by U.S. nationals with 23.5 percent.    
Of the total foreign owners, 93.4 percent possessed a single house, while 5.2 percent owned two homes. The domestic land possessed by foreigners came to 265,472,000 square meters at the end of June, up 0.6 percent from six months ago. It took up 0.26 percent of the country's total land.    
U.S. nationals owned the largest share of the total foreign land ownership at 53.4 percent, followed by Chinese with 7.8 percent, Europeans with 7.1 percent and Japanese with 6.2 percent. RSS    
---