Home value of Korea's richest is record 290 times that of poorest

The gap in home values between Korea’s richest and poorest households widened to a record last year, with the wealthiest 20 percent living in homes worth 290 times those of the bottom 20 percent on average.

The average value of owner-occupied homes among households in the bottom 20 percent by assets fell 9.1 percent on year to 2.39 million won ($1,800) in 2025, according to the Korean Statistical Information Service, run by the Ministry of Data and Statistics, on Monday. That was also the lowest figure since 2017, when the data began being compiled under the current standard.

Households that rent or do not live in the home that they own are counted as zero. 

The drop appears to be driven largely by falling homeownership in the bottom 20 percent. Only 6.6 percent of the group owned their occupied home, down 0.8 percentage points from a year earlier and the lowest on record.

For the top 20 percent, the average home value rose 7.7 percent to 693.41 million won, the second highest since 746.35 million won in 2022.

Though homeownership in this group slipped 1.2 percentage points from a year earlier to 82.5 percent, rising home prices appear to have lifted the average, with the median value rising 2.9 percent to 720 million won.

With values falling at the bottom and rising at the top, the top 20 percent’s average reached 290.1 times that of the bottom 20, the widest gap since 2017. The ratio stood around 146 times in 2017 and 2018, rose to 245.5 in 2022, fell to 215.1 in 2023 and climbed again to 244.9 in 2024.

The home value gap also pushed the overall wealth gap to a new record. Total assets of the bottom 20 percent, including their homes, fell 2.9 percent to 25.88 million won, while those of the top 20 percent rose 7.5 percent to 1.78 billion won, putting the latter’s assets at 68.6 times those of the former.

The income gap, however, was not as wide. When ranking households by income instead of assets, the top 20 percent earned 11.2 times as much current income and 9.8 times as much disposable income as the bottom 20 percent, according to last year’s survey, which measures income from the previous year. The current income gap has narrowed from 12 to 13 times from 2017 through 2019, and the disposable income gap from 11 to 12 times.

Because the data counts only owner-occupied homes, the gap would likely be even wider if investment properties owned by the top 20 percent were included.

BY JANG GU-SEUL [[email protected]]