Korean Apartments: 1980s vs 1990s — Why Do Older Complexes Look Younger?

This video directly compares vintage Korean apartments from the 1980s and 1990s on site.

It captures the raw reality of how Korean apartments were built during that era's rapid development and speculative money games—showing the undeniable contrast between 1980s complexes that kept lush landscaping and 1990s complexes paved over with bare concrete and parking lots decades later.

 

3 Raw Questions Anyone Asks Visiting These Old Complexes

1. These 1980s apartments were built 5 to 6 years earlier—so why on earth do people ask for more money than the 1990s ones?

2. How come 1990s complexes don't have a single decent tree and are just paved over with concrete and parking spots?

3. They both look like run-down complexes at first glance. Does having trees really make that much of a difference to everyday living?

What You Learn Walking the Grounds

1. Buildings rot away, but trees only get bigger with time.

Concrete starts falling apart the second it dries. But the trees planted back in the 80s have had decades to grow thick and tall. Residents paid maintenance out of pocket for years to trim and care for them, and today that green canopy hides cracked, peeling walls. It makes the whole place feel alive and comfortable to walk through—and that's why buyers still pay good money for it.

2. Builders cared about cramming cars and cashing out, not people living there.

By the 1990s, everyone was buying cars, and land was running out fast. Construction companies weren't about to waste valuable ground on dirt and trees that made them zero money. They ripped out the greenery, laid down cheap asphalt, and squeezed in as many parking spots and units as possible just to squeeze out quick profits.

3. It’s the difference between a place to actually live and a depressing parking lot.

Trees don't stay alive on their own. You have to keep paying people to prune them, spray for pests, and clean up through every season. Seeing huge, healthy trees means the people living there cared enough to spend money keeping the place decent. Complexes without that are just bare, stained cement—and no fresh coat of paint will ever fix that bleak feeling.

How People Actually Bought These Places Back in the Day

Nowadays, people take out 30-year bank mortgages and check every little fire insurance policy before signing a deal. Back in the 80s and 90s, none of that existed. It was total chaos.

1. Banks wouldn't lend you a dime.

Regular banks only cared about lending money to big export corporations. Unless you got a tiny policy loan through a Korea Housing Bank account or a little help from your company, ordinary folks couldn't get a long-term loan to buy an apartment.

2. Cash in newspapers, neighborhood money rings, and backroom loans.

So how did people pay for them? They begged relatives, ran neighborhood savings circles (Gye), or borrowed straight from private loan sharks sitting in the back of neighborhood real estate shops. When contract day rolled around, people literally carried thick bricks of cash wrapped in newspaper inside sports bags to hand over in person.

3. Nobody even thought about fire insurance.

Basic fire insurance? Unless it was a massive high-rise, almost nobody bought it for standard walk-up apartments. If the place caught fire and burned down, you simply lost everything overnight and that was that.

4. The truth behind those concrete 90s complexes.

When the government pushed its massive 2-million-home drive and development went crazy in the 90s, the market turned into pure gambling. Builders had to churn out units fast under price caps, and nobody cared about trees or living environments. They just wanted to throw up concrete boxes, slap a fat premium on the paper rights, and flip them. Those ugly, treeless 90s complexes are the exact leftover junk of that wild money grab.

5. If It Were Me Back Then: Which One Would I Buy and How?

If I were putting my own hard-earned cash on the line back in that crazy era, the choice is a no-brainer: I would have bought the 1980s landscaped complex, hands down.

• The Pick: I wouldn't touch those rushed 90s concrete boxes. A 1980s apartment with mature trees means a solid community willing to pay for maintenance, and it guarantees higher land share per household. Buildings rot, but prime dirt with trees only gets scarcer.

• The Play: I wouldn't play the fool borrowing dirty money from curb-market loan sharks at cutthroat interest rates. I would leverage a secure company loan, pull money from a trusted family savings circle (Gye), and hunt for a desperate seller offloading a solid 80s unit before the next speculative wave hit. You buy the timeless dirt and the living environment—never the cheap, rushed cement.
  
  
  

  My Take

  If it were me back in that era, I wouldn't have cared about whether there were trees or just bare concrete. I would have bought strictly based on what my own capability and wallet could handle at that time. Landscaping or no landscaping didn't matter—you buy the apartment that fits your actual financial limits, nothing more and nothing less.