"8 Million Living Alone, but Non-Apartment Starts Plunge 72%... 'There Are No New Homes Except Apartments' [Real Estate A to Z]"

8 Million Single-Person Households, a Record High,
But Non-Apartment Supply Plunges 72% in Four Years

Nationwide Non-Apartment Housing Starts
Fall from 111,000 Units in 2021 to 31,000 Last Year

Aversion to Non-Apartment Housing Gro

View of an alley in Seoul densely packed with multi-family and row houses (villas). Household items.

The number of housing starts for non-apartment units such as multi-family houses, villas, and officetels has dropped by more than 70% over the past four years. While the number of single-person households continues to increase every year due to factors such as an aging population and non-marriage, the supply of housing suitable for them has actually shrunk. As the government's housing policy focuses on apartment supply, some point out that the housing cost burden for single-person households will continue to grow. In Sillim-dong, Gwanak District, a neighborhood densely populated with young people, a villa with an exclusive area of 22.65 square meters (about 7 pyeong) was rented on February 5 at a monthly rent of 1.63 million won with a 10 million won deposit.

According to housing statistics from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on February 10, the number of nationwide non-apartment housing starts fell from 110,986 units in 2021 to 84,382 units the following year, a decrease of more than 25,000 units. In 2023, housing starts amounted to only 42,576 units, about half of the previous year. In 2024 and last year, the figures declined again to 33,807 units and 31,215 units, respectively. This means they have fallen by nearly 30% per year on average over the past four years. The sharpest decline came in 2023, when the nationwide jeonse fraud crisis overlapped with a credit crunch in real estate project financing (PF).

An official at a mid-sized construction company said, "After the jeonse fraud incidents, there has been a growing tendency to avoid non-apartment housing, and as PF funding has become more difficult to secure, small-scale housing projects were the first to collapse," adding, "The decline in housing starts is bound to continue for the time being." During the same period, apartment housing starts fell to 199,612 units in 2023, then rebounded to 269,626 units in 2024.

Officetel supply is also facing a cliff. According to Real Estate R114, the number of officetel units scheduled for move-in nationwide this year is 11,909, the lowest level in 16 years since 2010 (7,482 units). Compared to 2019, when 110,000 units came onto the market, this is only one-tenth the level. It takes two to three years for officetels to go from pre-sale to occupancy, and the shock of 2023 pre-sales plunging to one-quarter of the previous year's level (6,605 units) is now becoming a reality.

Villa and officetel prices hitting record highs one after another

Multi-family houses and officetels account for a large share of single-person households' housing types. The largest proportion, 42.7%, live in multi-family houses (including detached houses), which are one-room buildings of three stories or less owned by a single landlord who collects monthly rent. These are followed by row and multi-family houses of four stories or less, commonly referred to as "villas" (11.8%), and officetels used for both work and residential purposes (8.2%). While about 57% of the overall population owns their own home, the figure for single-person households is only around 30%.

The housing burden for single-person households is not felt only on the supply side. As supply has decreased, price increases have become clearly visible. According to KB Real Estate statistics, the villa sale price index in Seoul stood at 103.58 as of last month, rising for 10 consecutive months. Jeonse prices have also risen for two straight months.

The rise in monthly rents is even steeper. According to the Korea Real Estate Board, the monthly rent price index for villas in the Seoul metropolitan area reached 101.51 in December last year, setting a new record high since the statistics began in June 2015. After the October 15 measures, the pace of increase accelerated, with a 0.23-point rise in October, followed by 0.25 points and 0.28 points in November and December, respectively, marking the largest monthly increases on record each month. During the same period, the average monthly rent for villas in Seoul was 642,290 won, but this is an overall average that does not distinguish by exclusive area or location, so the actual burden felt by tenants is much higher. The average monthly rent for officetels in Seoul was 930,000 won in the fourth quarter of last year, and the quarter-on-quarter increase of 0.76% was the highest since the statistics began. While average officetel sale prices nationwide fell (-0.30%), they rose in Seoul (0.30%).

Eight million single-person households nationwide, highly dependent on non-apartments

The supply of non-apartment housing is moving in the opposite direction of the growth in single-person households. As of 2024, the number of single-person households stands at 8,045,000, accounting for about 36% of all households in Korea. By age group, those in their 20s and younger make up the largest share at 17.8%, followed by those in their 60s (17.6%) and those in their 30s (17.4%), meaning that young adults and the elderly account for most of these households.

Jang Kyungseok, legislative researcher at the Economic and Industrial Affairs Team of the National Assembly Research Service, said, "Single-person households have difficulty entering the apartment market due to insufficient income, so they are structurally dependent on non-apartment housing," diagnosing that "high monthly rents relative to income make it hard for them to save, which in turn limits upward mobility in housing, creating a vicious cycle that keeps repeating."

Young people pushed into goshiwons

Young people who are being pushed out of the private market are flocking to public housing where they can live at half the market price. Last year, the average subscription competition rate for purchase-type rental housing supplied by Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) for young people was 52 to 1. In Yongsan District, Seoul, five units of youth purchase-type rental housing were supplied, attracting 3,171 applicants and resulting in a competition rate of more than 600 to 1.

For young people who fail to secure public rental housing, the next stop is goshiwons, or tiny one-room units. According to the National Assembly Research Service, among single-person households, there are 116,882 "multi-risk households" that fall under all three criteria: below the minimum housing standard, below 50% of median income, and paying more than 30% of income in rent. Of these, half (48%) are in their 20s, and 73% of them live in goshiwons. While the minimum housing standard for a single-person household is 14 square meters (about 4 pyeong), as many as 139,000 households in their 20s live in spaces that do not even meet this standard. Nevertheless, only one-third of them have received any form of government housing support.

Experts argue that policymakers must move away from uniform, apartment-centered supply measures and instead design policies that reflect the reality of single-person households. Researcher Jang said, "We need a shift in perception to recognize single-person households not as a temporary form before marriage, but as a universal household type across the entire life course," and suggested, "The government should increase the allocation of units for single-person households in public pre-sale and public rental housing, and ease building and parking regulations to first improve conditions for private-sector small housing supply." He added, "For young people living in goshiwons, the threshold for receiving housing benefits should be lowered, and for elderly people in need of care, public senior housing should be expanded, so that tailored measures are implemented in parallel for each stage of the life cycle."