Over the past eight years, more than 40% of privately owned dwellings in Seoul were bought by residents of other regions living outside the city. This suggests that a significant share of dwellings newly supplied in Seoul or converted to private ownership recently were likely purchased not to live in directly but for asset accumulation or investment.
According to the Ministry of Data and Statistics (MODS) Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS) on the 28th, as of 2024 there were a total of 2,736,773 privately owned dwellings in Seoul. That is an increase of 201,166 units over eight years compared with 2016, when the survey first began (2,535,607 units).
Most of the increase was attributed to the supply of newly built dwellings. In the statistics, apartments, detached houses, row houses, and multiplex dwellings are included as dwellings, excluding quasi-dwellings such as officetels.
Notably, of the roughly 200,000 units added during this period, 45.5% (91,617 units) were owned by outsiders whose registered address is in a city or province other than Seoul. Adding those who live in Seoul but reside in a different district from the district where their own dwelling is located (12,326 units), the share soars to 51.7%, more than half.
Of course, a registered address and an actual residence can differ depending on circumstances, but even considering that, the fact that nearly half of the new homes were taken by outsiders indicates that a desire to hold for non-occupancy reasons played a strong role, industry analysts said.
This zeal among outsiders to buy in Seoul stands out clearly compared with other regions. Nationwide, only 16.2% of the increase in private dwellings during the same period was purchased by outsiders, making Seoul's figure nearly three times the national average. Busan, which had the next-highest outsider share, was only 27.8%, and Gyeonggi Province, which had the largest supply of dwellings, saw outsider-owned increases remain at 6.8%. In fact, the share of outsiders owning Seoul dwellings has steadily risen each year from 14.7% in 2016 to 17.0% in 2024.
Industry observers also said that, amid these conditions, the government's ongoing push to overhaul real estate taxes to focus on "actual occupants" is likely to gain momentum. The government is revising the law to reduce tax benefits for those who simply held a home for a long time and to increase benefits based on the period they actually lived in the home.