Less than 30% of young Koreans are homeowners, lowest ever

A record-low number of South Koreans in their 20s and 30s owned their own homes in 2025, while the percentage of financially-challenged homeowners also marked the lowest ever. Some 27.7 percent of Koreans under the age of 40 owned homes last year, down 2.4 percentage points compared to the year before, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics. It was the lowest figure since the government started the tally in 2017, and substantially less than the 40.7 percent in 2018 and 2019. The propor