February 9, 2026
SEOUL – A record-breaking 3.61 million heads of households in their 20s and 30s did not own homes here in 2024, data showed Sunday, with nearly a million of them residing in Seoul.
The number of household heads under the age of 40 who did not own homes reached the highest figure since the government started its official tally in 2015, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics. The figure in Seoul rose to 992,856, which was also the highest on record.
The number of young Seoul residents who do not own homes has been trending upward since an initial tally of 799,491 in 2015, as has the figure in the greater Seoul area, which includes Gyeonggi Province and Incheon. The latter surpassed the 2 million mark for the first time in 2022 and has since been increasing.
Just 1.29 million Koreans under 40 owned homes — 666,640 of them in the greater Seoul area and 216,129 in Seoul itself. All figures were the lowest on record.
The percentage of young homeowners nationwide and in the capital area was 26.3 percent and 24.6 percent, respectively, but the percentage in Seoul was just 17.9 percent.
A November report by the Statistics Ministry showed that only 24.8 percent of 30-somethings living in Seoul owned homes in 2024, down substantially from 33.3 percent in 2015.
Housing issues in Seoul — the nation’s capital and most populous city — have been worsening mainly due to rising prices. A January report by the Korea Real Estate Board showed that the value of apartments in Seoul last year rose 8.7 percent from 2024, the biggest on-year increase since 2006.
A December government report showed that 5.3 percent of households headed by those aged 19-34 were living in makeshift structures not intended for long-term residential use, such as greenhouses and shipping containers.
Housing appears to place a significant financial burden on young Koreans.
According to the Statistics Ministry, the under-40 household heads who took bank loans to buy homes or make deposits on “jeonse” paid on average 166,000 won a month in interest alone in third quarter of 2025. It increased for a third straight quarter.
Jeonse refers to a long-term lease in which the tenant puts up a large deposit, nearly equivalent to the home value, for one or more years, instead of paying monthly rent.