Sorry to Burst Your Bubble...

... but the chickens of South Korea's baby bust are coming home to roost — Low Birthrate Hits Housing Market. From the article:

The slump in demand has led to increasing numbers of empty homes, which went up by 10 percent over the last five years, from 728,000 in 2005 to 794,000. And in newly built apartment buildings, the situation is worse. The institute's analysis of the occupation rate of apartment buildings in the Seoul metropolitan area as of February revealed that one in four apartments is empty. In Incheon, half the new apartments that were ready to let last year remain empty.

The familiar cry for the government to save us is heard, with Nam Hee-yong of the Korea Housing Institute saying, "We urgently need mid- and long-term policies to avoid the same trouble as Japan, which is seeing more and more empty homes and a rapid decline in housing demand." How about making just more babies?