Property gift transfers surge to 3-year high amid housing tax pressure

A tourist takes a photo of a fellow visitor with apartment complexes and other high-rise residential buildings in the background at Mount Nam in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap

Home transfers hit a three-year high in 2025, possibly driven by homeowners wanting to avoid the higher housing taxes the government plans to introduce, data showed Tuesday.

According to the Supreme Court’s online property ownership records, a total of 26,428 cases involving the transfer of multi-residential homes were reported nationwide from January to September.

The properties involved were primarily apartments — the most popular form of housing in Korea — as well as more affordable options such as villas and officetels.

The 2025 tally increased by 1,037 from the 25,391 reported between January and September in 2024, and marked the highest figure since 2022, when 34,829 cases were reported over the same nine-month period.

Notably, gift transfers in Seoul this year reached 5,877 cases, up 19.6 percent from 4,912 cases in the same period last year.

Of the nationwide increase of 1,037 cases from 2024 to 2025, Seoul accounted for 965 cases, or 93.05 percent.

By district, Gangnam recorded the highest number of gift transfers in Seoul with 507 cases from January to September, followed by 396 in Yangcheon, 395 in Songpa, and 378 in Seocho — with activity notably concentrated in the upscale “Gangnam 3 Districts” of Gangnam, Seocho and Songpa.

The Supreme Court data did not specify the donors or beneficiaries involved in the transfers.

However, since such transfers typically occur between parents and children, market observers speculated that families that own homes are accelerating intergenerational inheritance in anticipation of potential increases in housing taxes.

Observers also noted that multiple top-ranked officials have emphasized the need for such hikes as part of efforts to curb rising housing prices.

Housing-related taxes include the holding tax, capital gains tax and the so-called comprehensive real estate tax — all of which increase with property value.

This suggests that children may face a greater overall tax burden, including gift tax, when inheriting property from their parents.

“The home-owning families would want to reduce tax on gifted property as much as possible before the tax hike plan is materialized,” said Kim Je-kyung, a chief consultant at real estate agency Tumi.

Kim noted that even though President Lee Jae Myung pledged that he would not use taxes to control housing prices, this position appears to be shifting as housing prices continue to climb.

The upward trend is continuing even after the government introduced two rounds of lending restrictions on June 27 and again on Sept. 7.

In August, Kim Yong-beom, presidential chief of staff for policy, said that “The government should not be limited in its policy tools for the sake of housing market stability and housing welfare.”

In September, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Koo Yoon-cheol said the government will review tax options based on the housing situation.

“Of course, we’ll be cautious about using tax policy concerning the housing market, but it will be wrong to assume that we will never use certain policies for any reason whatsoever,” he said.

Also in September, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yun-duk, while emphasizing that it was a personal opinion, said “an increase in property holding tax is necessary.”