Seoul Apartments Affordable at Median Income Drop Sharply from 16.5% to 2.7%

Assemblyman Jeong Woo-taek Analyzes National Assembly Budget Office's 'Housing Purchase Volume Index for the Past 5 Years' Data

[Asia Economy Reporter Kangwook Cho] Over the past five years, as housing prices have soared, the proportion of apartments that middle-income households can afford to purchase in Seoul has sharply declined from 16.5% to 2.7%.

According to data titled 'Status of Housing Purchase Quantity Index by Metropolitan City and Province (2017?2021)' submitted to Rep. Woo-taek Jeong of the People Power Party by the National Assembly Budget Office on the 24th, the housing purchase quantity index (K-HAI) for middle-income households across 17 cities and provinces nationwide dropped from 58.7% in 2017 to 44.6% last year, a decrease of 14.1 percentage points.

The housing purchase quantity index calculates the proportion of apartments in a given area that middle-income households can afford to buy, based on their net assets and income, assuming they take out a loan.

In particular, Seoul's housing purchase quantity index plummeted from 16.5% in 2017 to 2.7% last year.

This means that if a middle-income household in Seoul tried to buy a home with a loan, the number of apartments they could afford dropped from about 16 to 17 units out of 100 five years ago to fewer than 3 units last year, almost disappearing.

Last year, the median income was 1,827,831 KRW for a single-person household, 3,088,079 KRW for a two-person household, 3,983,950 KRW for a three-person household, and 4,876,290 KRW for a four-person household.

During the same period, Gyeonggi Province's housing purchase quantity index fell sharply from 51.3% to 26.2%, and Incheon dropped from 52.9% to 32.5%, decreasing by 25.1 and 20.4 percentage points, respectively.

The situation in other regions was similar. Daejeon's housing purchase quantity index fell the most nationwide, dropping 31.1 percentage points from 73.1% five years ago to 42.0% last year. Other regions also saw significant declines: Chungnam (92.3% → 78.0%), Gwangju (79.2% → 66.1%), Chungbuk (85.9% → 73.3%), Ulsan (74.8% → 63.1%), Gyeongnam (82.8% → 74.0%), and Gyeongbuk (92.3% → 84.2%). Jeju was the only region to see an increase during the same period, rising 9.7 percentage points from 43.7% to 53.4%.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.