Top 1% Households Own an Average of 4.7 Properties... Assets Near 3 Billion Won

Statistics Korea 'Housing Ownership Statistics' Analysis Results
7 out of 10 in the Top 1% Reside in Seoul

The asset value of houses owned by the top 1% of households with housing was found to approach an average of 3 billion KRW. Additionally, they owned an average of 4.68 houses, and 7 out of 10 lived in Seoul.

On the 6th, Im Kwang-hyun, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, announced the results of an analysis of the 'Housing Ownership Statistics' received from Statistics Korea. According to the results, in 2022, the average housing asset value of households in the top 1% by asset value (based on the publicly announced price as of January 1 of last year) among households with housing was 2.945 billion KRW. This represents a 14.6% decrease from 3.45 billion KRW the previous year.

View of Yeouido apartments from the 63 Building observatory. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

The average housing asset value of the top 1% steadily increased from 2.13 billion KRW in 2017 to ▲2.377 billion KRW in 2018 ▲2.768 billion KRW in 2019 ▲3.089 billion KRW in 2020. However, as the real estate market contracted in 2022 due to factors such as rising interest rates, the housing asset value of the top 1% also declined. Considering that this value is based on last year and that real estate prices have recently been rising again, especially in Seoul and the metropolitan area, the current average housing asset value of the top 1% is likely higher than this.

In 2022, the housing asset value of the bottom 10% was 30 million KRW, unchanged from the previous year. The gap in housing asset value between the bottom 10% and the top 1% reached 98.2 times. The previous year's gap was 115.0 times, but the gap narrowed as the asset value of the top 1% decreased. The average asset value of all households with housing was 315 million KRW, and the gap with the top 1% was 9.3 times.

Apartment sale and jeonse prices are posted on real estate in Mapo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

The average number of houses owned by the top 1% was 4.68, an increase of 0.12 from 4.56 the previous year. This is about 3.5 times the average number of houses owned by households with housing (1.34). The average number of houses owned by the top 1% was 5.53 in 2017, showing a decreasing trend to 4.93 in 2019, but increased again in 2022. Among the top 1% households, 72.3% resided in Seoul, the highest proportion. This is a slight increase from 71.0% the previous year. The next most common residential areas for the top 1% households were Gyeonggi (16.9%) and Busan (2.9%).

Assemblyman Im said, "Although the gap in housing asset value between households has somewhat narrowed since the end of COVID-19, there has been no confirmation of a reduction in the gap in the number of houses owned and concentration in the metropolitan area. In the trend of rising housing prices until August this year, it is necessary to manage factors increasing household debt burdens and focus on policy efforts to reduce housing asset disparities."