Home ownership rises 2.3% in 2024; female homeowners on steady rise: data
This file photo shows the construction site of an apartment complex in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap
The number of homeowners in Korea increased 2.3 percent from a year earlier in 2024, with female ownership showing a steady rise, government data showed Friday.
The total number of people with home ownership registrations reached 15.98 million last year, up 357,000 from the previous year, according to the data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics.
The data showed that 7.2 million were female homeowners, making up 46.4 percent of the total.
The ratio has been on a gradual rise, from 45.6 percent in 2021 to 45.9 percent in 2022 and 46.2 percent in 2023.
The ministry partly attributed the steady growth in women's home ownership to greater gender empowerment and an increase in the number of single women owning homes.
Among all homeowners, 2.38 million people, or 14.9 percent, owned two or more properties.
The proportion of multiple home owners reached its peak in 2019 at 15.9 percent but has since been on a downward trend, partly due to rising property taxes.
By region, the southern island of Jeju recorded the highest percentage of multiple home owners at 20 percent, followed by South Chungcheong Province at 17.4 percent.
In contrast, the percentage was relatively low in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, where it stood at 13.8 percent.
The data also showed that 13.6 million people owned only one property, representing 85.1 percent of all homeowners.