Park Jong-chul, an 85-year-old man from Seoul, recently decided it was time to move to a retirement home to secure the help he and his wife need now. After watching a presentation for VL Le West, a high-end senior apartment under development by conglomerate Lotte, he is ready to register for one of the few remaining rooms.
“These types of retirement homes provide three meals a day,” he said, adding that it was not too expensive considering what it costs to hire a housekeeper.
He joins a growing number of South Korean retirees who want to spend their final years in self-pay retirement homes. In one of the fastest aging countries in the world, these homes are becoming increasingly popular, with the likes of Lotte and Hyundai investing billions of dollars in new projects.
