Is the Korean housing market following Gangnam style?

Gangnam is a prime district in Korea known for its expensive real estate market due to convenient transportation, shopping and business centers, and elite schools and academies in the area. This paper examines spillovers and network connectedness in the Korean regional markets using the spillover index of Diebold and Yilmaz (J Econom 182:119–134, 2014). We use the quantile regression approach to investigate the macroeconomic factors driving the total spillover effects under low, normal, and high spillovers. We find that the 1997–1998 Asian currency crisis intensified regional spillovers in the Korean housing market. Moreover, Gangnam is the largest transmitter of spillovers across the regional housing markets in Korea. Our visual network illustrates that Gangnam is a hub of connectedness, implying that it is the most influential shock transmitter among the regional housing markets. Our study has an implication for investors: macroeconomic factors affect spillovers across regional housing sales and rental markets under different degrees of spillover.