Ooof, this is no good for Ryu Jun Yeol‘s reputation, and in K-ent a good reputation once stained is harder to scrub clean and netizens really want their stars to have spotless behavioral backgrounds. K-actor Ryu Jun Yeol is trending all over Korean search sites today after news broke that he may have engaged in frowned upon real estate speculation. It was reported that he set up his own company a few years ago with his mom as the managing director, and that company bought a house for around $4M USD two years ago. The problem is that it was financed with only a 10% down payment and 90% mortgage, and that’s impossible for any normal citizen to get approved for a 90% mortgage. Word.
The house was torn down and a 7 story building with a 2 story basement was built also financed 70% in building costs with a loan. The property was then sold this year for around $12M USD and reportedly Ryu Jun Yeol pocketed around $3.3M USD net (after taxes and fees) in profit. If this is true then yes it is real estate speculation, buying for the sake of remodeling and selling high, which is legal but continues to drive up real estate prices in South Korea (and around the world in many places) which makes it harder for the average person to afford their first home and start building personal residential and financial security. Ryu Jun Yeol’s agency CJ said this was their entertainer’s personal business so no comment and Ryu Jun Yeol’s company side said the property was initially purchased to open a business with friends on the ground floor but due to the pandemic that was scrapped hence it was sold.
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Isn’t his agency C-Jes? And the other aspect about this that is bad for him, he did an interviews in 2019 (his company with the Mom was put up in 2018) which is him basically trying to sell the image that he is not interested in money, investment, or owning buildings, yada yada…..
Isn’t c-jes that thug company whose CEO served 2 years jail time for blackmailing kwon sang woo? Probably joined the company and got influenced south. Sucks for him to be mired in this saga since his rep is so far so good.
It is C-Jes, his agency, not YG.
If it is legal, then he did nothing wrong. Blame the government and their lax control. Entertainers are not politicians and policy makers. They are just money earner. For a society that worships chaebols, k society really needs to look at their priorities who to criticise.
If it is legal in all aspects, so what is wrong?
Can anyone enlighten me on this matter.
ockoala is stirring up poop for click baits. slow news day here. can’t compare with war news elsewhere.
k netizens are more interested in presidential election in eleven days.
I especially don’t get the complaint that it makes it harder for first time buyers. If you tear down a single residence and build a 7-story multi unit… you’ve increased density and increased housing supply.
This controversy is stupid.
where do you live? what he’s doing is frowned on by citizens in many cities that have high house prices.
He purchased a property and sold it shortly after at a huge profit. Treating real estate like a business is pricing regular people out of the ability to purchase their own homes.
Are u a communist? Why he should taken people into account when it is his own money and the public’s money
*not the public money
I can’t seem to reply but @fwid he can do what he wants and the public can judge him equally which is what they’re doing. he can go swim in his cash while he receives rightful public backlash.
so like flipping property? people do that where i live but i don’t see much backlash, so what’s the difference? it’s business. shouldn’t koreans be protesting against government officials if they want change instead of being keyboard warriors? when will they learn to stop putting their celebrities to a higher moral standard.
I live in a big city in California so you don’t need to educate me about riding house prices.
But what he did is called improving and expanding a property- it’s investing and taking on leveraged risk. It’s not illegal and he didn’t knock over a bank.
He should learn from iu who had insider info for property, made huge profit. Got called out. Then turned into it studio for musicians lol and did her tax saving charity to show how good she is
What the heck are you on. Stop spreading lies. First, what profit? She has never sold her building so what profit are you referring to? Second, young musicians have been using her building for free. She didn’t suddenly let them use it because she was ‘called out’ like you said. Third, you hater really trying to find anything to hate her. Even having problems with her doing charity and donations. Why dont you or your favs do some charity and donations then. It’s so easy sitting behind the screen and talk shit about ppl doing donations.
the replies so far lol either a lot of oppalogists on here or koala’s readers do not live in cities that have housing markets that keep inflating due to investors who flip properties.
What he did was actually legal but considered to be unethical.
But should we be surprised by how some fans can actually accept the unethical things that their oppa did as long as it is “legal”?
thanks for your comment. some people should be better informed before throwing words like ‘communist’ or blaming Koala for repeating what is now controversial about their oppa in k-ent news.
Just because something isn’t illegal or isn’t worth to bat an eyelash in some parts of the world, doesn’t mean it’s right or not worth mentioning.
I know people make profit out of houses. That’s okay. However, in a lot of cities more and more property speculations are in fact cutting normal people from ever having their own apartments or houses. please, read about it, if you don’t belive it
May I know what unethical about it? If so, manufacturing is also unethical. You buy the raw material, processed it and sell it. So it’s unethical. Considering many companies have their working capital even fully funded by the bank. Unless otherwise, Ockoala missed to report the unethical part of the deals.
At least, he built a new building. So it’s kinda normal to sell it at a new price. Now, real estate is an issue in every city sadly… A lot of prices don’t make any sense…
I see this practice all the time in UK, US, AUS, CAN and these places have hot housing markets too. It’s a free market economy, we can’t fault people from trying to do business. Their target market are not those who complain that they can’t afford these houses anyway, so it’s the governments that need to address the housing problems.
In our country we simply call it as buy and sell. In many cases, you build (make improvements) and then sell after. That’s how you turn real estates into good investments. If you are not going to use it or have it as long-term investment, why suffer from paying too much taxes and monthly amortization. Sell when able.
The netizen like to ride the negative train. They will find anything to bring there celebrate down. They don’t want to write about all the good things he do. His interview he had a couple years ago about not being a victim to love of money. Please can you live in this world without money. He brought a building to start a clothing business with friends the pandemic hit. He renovation the building and sole it So he made a few dollars i say congratulation to Ryu why is his personal business everyone business.
It’s legal and rich do it all the time. The problem here is that it’s really different from the IMAGE he build. He even went to Cuba for a show and praised their austere living. Typical bourgeois communist behaviour. I hope he will eventually explain since most of his korean fans like him for his altruism and environmental awareness.
Sorry I don’t get your point. Altruistic people don’t have right to do business? Where will they get their funds to support the poor?
No matter how Ockoala said it in the negative way, I don’t see any wrong about buying a property & refurbishing or rebuilding and selling. It’s called business.
This is ridiculous. I just don’t get this criticism and scrutiny that Korean celebrities are subjected to. He didn’t do anything illegal. Why is he being chastized for making money? I think it shows that he got brains in addition to being an actor. Go you!
I mean he sold this legally so there is nothing wrong about that, i think.
Wake up, it is legal to buy and sell at a profit, I guess they are just jealous…
“It’s not illegal, it’s his money so he can do anything with it, it’s common here” etc etc. people need to put korean glasses to look into this matter. It matters and becomes a controversy because it happens in korea and in the perspective of koreans. Yes, what jun yeol did is indeed legal. And knetz don’t say otherwise either. Go read the news from kmedia, read some comments by knetz. They mostly criticize him for his actions that’s so different with the word he himself said in 2019 and the assumingely real estate speculation that he did. It’s not the legality that’s the problem but the effect it has to the real estate prices in korea which is already sky high and in results makes it hard for the regular citizens to own a house there. Ms koala has summarize this matter well in his article.
Are comments here conveniently ignoring the fact that the loan value is 90%? Say if the typical loan amount is 60-70%, then he’s basically flipping and profiting with less capital than the average person. You can see why it’s frowned upon.
Even if it’s 100% funded. It only means it’s a high risk investment for the bank. Anyway, higher the loan value the higher the interest charged to the borrower. You have to keep in mind, the property itself is the collateral to the loan. When they calculated the profit of the sale, have they considered the interest payments for many years?
That’s completely irrelevant. My point is only the comparison of how much he loaned versus the average person. Both would have paid the interests so that’s a moot point.