Landlord is a Minor? ... Number of Minor Multi-Homeowners Increasing for 5 Years

26,000 Minors Owned by Individuals

The number of minors owning houses approached 26,000. Among them, about 6%, or approximately 1,500, are multi-homeowners owning two or more houses.

View of apartment complexes in downtown Seoul from Namsan, Seoul.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

According to the 'Housing Ownership Statistics' received by Im Kwang-hyun, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, from Statistics Korea on the 22nd, the number of minors under the age of 19 owning houses as of 2022 was 25,933, an increase of 0.6% compared to the previous year (25,776). This marks a continuous increase for three consecutive years since 2019.

The number of minors owning two or more houses increased by 7.5% to 1,516 in 2022 from 1,410 in the previous year. The number of minor multi-homeowners has steadily increased since 2017, rising by 22.1% over five years compared to 2017.

Looking at minor multi-homeowners by residence, Seoul (419), Gyeonggi (383), and Busan (110) ranked highest. Minors owning multiple homes living in the Seoul metropolitan area, including Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon, numbered 868, accounting for 57.3% of the total, exceeding the majority.

Minors Owning Stocks Worth 200 Billion Won

Minors' assets are not limited to real estate. There are also a significant number of stock-rich minors. As of the 12th, a total of 90 minors were recorded as owning stocks worth more than 1 billion won in domestic listed companies. Among them, 19 minors own stocks worth more than 5 billion won, and 11 minors own stocks worth more than 10 billion won. The youngest among minors holding stocks worth over 1 billion won is the child born in 2022 of Lee Su-wan, CEO of Deoksan Tecopia. Lee's child owns stocks worth 2.2 billion won.

The top stock value holder is the 17-year-old son of Kwak Dong-shin, Vice Chairman of Hanmi Semiconductor, who owns stocks worth about 200 billion won. The 11-year-old granddaughter of Jung Ji-wan, Chairman of semiconductor materials company Solbrain, owns stocks worth 32.1 billion won in three listed companies including Solbrain, ranking second among minor stock-rich individuals.