Minors purchased nearly 3,000 homes in South Korea over last five years

Nearly 3,000 homes have been purchased by minors in the past five years in South Korea, government data showed Thursday.

Between 2019 and 2023, the number of home purchases by people under the age of 19 came to 2,964, which amounted to 519.8 billion won ($379.41 million), according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport data submitted to Rep. Ahn Do-geol of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea.

Considering the purchasers' young ages, it appears many of these homes were either owned by the children’s parents or acquired through gifts or inheritance.

The top 100 minor buyers bought 535 homes, with a total purchase value of 67.1 billion won, from 2019 to June this year.

Among these top 100 buyers, 10 were under 10 years old, acquiring 90 homes for about 8.85 billion won. Teenagers accounted for the majority of the remaining transactions, with 66 buyers acquiring 339 homes for 43.5 billion won.

The top two buyers on the list bought 22 properties each, with a total purchase price of 2.37 billion won and 1.33 billion won, respectively. One of these buyers was under 10 years old, while the other was a teenager. In addition, 11 minors bought more than 10 homes each during the same period.

The number of young landlords is also on the rise.

According to the National Tax Service, 3,294 minor landlords earned 57.99 billion won in rental income from real estate in 2022. This marks a 15.9 percent increase from 2019 when 2,842 minors made rental income.

Rep. Ahn said it appears that people with multiple properties are using their children’s names to buy homes or pass on wealth through gifts and inheritance. “The National Tax Service needs to thoroughly investigate these transactions to check whether there was any tax evasion or illegal inheritance.”