Multiple apartment owners up sharply

By Choi Sung-jin

The number of people who own two or more apartments has topped 600,000, and the growth rate of multiple apartment owners is twice as fast as that of people who have only one flat, statistics show.

Analysts ascribed the rapid increase to the Park Geun-hye administration’s policy to bolster the housing market, aimed at funneling more idle money into property markets by, for instance, giving subscription priority to people who already have homes.

According to “statistics on individuals’ homeownership” based on Statistics Korea’s administrative tally, the number of people who have two or more apartments totaled 642,000 in 2014, up about 50,000, or 8.4 percent, from 2013. In the 2012-13 period, the number rose by 32,000, or 5.7 percent.

Those who owned two apartments totaled 559,000; three apartments, 51,000; four flats, 13,000; and five homes, 6,000. About 4,000 people owned 11 apartments or more. On the other hand, people who own one apartment increased only 2.8 percent to 7.26 million.

The share of multiple homeowners among people who have their own homes also increased from 7.7 percent to 8.1 percent while that of single homeowners fell from 92.3 percent to 91.9 percent.

Property watchers attributed the phenomenon to the increase in double-income households. The property experts also suspect that government policy has helped reignite real estate speculation among cash-laden investors.