SEOUL  -  South Korea’s home ownership rose last year on higher proportion of female ownership, statistical office data showed. The number of registered home owners reached 15.62 million in 2023, up 2.0 percent compared with the previous year, according to Statistics Korea. Female home owners accounted for 46.2 percent of the total last year, continuing to advance from 45.2 percent in 2020 to 45.6 percent in 2021 and 45.9 percent in 2022. Of the total, 2.34 million home owners, or 15.0pc, possessed two or more properties in 2023. After peaking at 15.9 percent in 2019, the proportion of multiple home owners has roughly been on decrease.

The remaining 13.28 million home owners possessed only one property, taking up 85.0 percent of the total.

By age, home owners in their 50s recorded the highest percentage of 25.2 percent, followed by those in their 60s with 22.8 percent, 40s with 21.2 percent, 70s with 12.0 percent and 30s with 9.5 percent.

Among the total of 22.07 million households, 56.4 percent owned their own properties in 2023, up 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier.

Home price among the top 10 percent of households in terms of property value, averaged 1.26 billion won (903,870 U.S. dollars), over 40 times higher than the average housing price of 31 million won (22,240 dollars) for the bottom 10 percent.