30-somethings account for half of 1st-time homebuyers in Seoul

A visitor looks out over apartment complexes from N Seoul Tower in central Seoul, Monday. Yonhap

Cho Sung-jin and his wife, a dual-income couple in their mid-30s, took out every available loan to buy their first home in Seoul last year when the city’s apartment prices soared 8.71 percent from the previous year.

That growth was the highest since 2013. Still, the couple were not alone among their peers in their 30s rushing to buy homes in Seoul, betting that tighter government lending rules would not curb prices.

“I would say 30-somethings had an edge over other age groups, as we had more career experience and correspondingly higher incomes than those in their 20s, while also qualifying for loans for newlyweds or parents of newborns, unlike those in their 40s or older,” Cho said, noting that he was eligible for both types of loans.

Cho highlights a record share of Koreans in their 30s among all first-time homebuyers in Seoul last year, as shown in the Supreme Court’s online property ownership data.

The properties include apartments, the most popular form of housing in Korea, as well as more affordable options such as villas and officetels.

Those in their 30s made up nearly half of all buyers registering their first home purchases, accounting for 30,483 cases, or 49.84 percent of the 61,161 total registrations.

The 2025 rate marked an upward trajectory for the third consecutive year, rising from 36.66 percent in 2022 to 42.93 percent in 2023, and then to 45.98 percent in 2024.

It also marked the highest share for 30-somethings since the relevant data was first compiled in 2010.

This record share occurred despite three rounds of tightened housing regulations — on June 27, Sept. 7 and Oct. 15 — as housing prices continued to climb during the first year of President Lee Jae Myung’s term.

For instance, the maximum housing loan was restricted to 600 million won ($413,000), while the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, which determines the allowable mortgage relative to a property’s value, was lowered from 50 percent to 40 percent.

“Under the circumstances, people in their 30s are believed to have led home purchases using policy-backed loans that faced relatively fewer restrictions, including those for newlyweds and families with newborns,” said Kwon Dae-jung, a real estate professor at Sogang University.

The professor also noted that people in this age group had more cash on hand than those in their 20s to meet the 600 million won loan cap.

Meanwhile, those in their 40s accounted for 22.67 percent of first-time housing purchases in 2025, down from 24.05 percent in 2024.

Over the same period, the proportion of buyers in their 20s declined to 10.64 percent from 11 percent, while the share of buyers in their 50s fell to 9.89 percent from 12.6 percent.