The buying trend of the 20th and 30th generations, who took the lead in the ‘panic buying’ procession, is rapidly declining. The proportion of apartment purchases in Seoul fell to 24%, the lowest level ever recorded in June. Last year, the buying trend of people in their 30s and younger was so fierce that it surpassed those in their 40s and 50s, the main buyers of the existing real estate market.
According to the Korea Real Estate Agency on the 3rd, 499 transactions were made for those in their 30s or younger out of Seoul apartment transaction volume (2014) in June. The proportion of purchases by the 20s and 30s was 24.8% of the total transaction volume, the lowest since January 2019, when the Real Estate Agency began compiling statistics by age of purchasers.
The proportion of apartment purchases in Seoul under 30 years old, which was around 30% until 2019, reached 40.3% in August 2020, breaking the 40% level for the first time. In July of last year, this proportion soared to 44.8% as the purchases of secular ‘youngkle people’ (people who invest even their souls) continued around the outskirts of Seoul and southern Gyeonggi Province.
At the beginning of this year, the proportion of purchases by the 20th and 30th generations was maintained at around 40%. However, as interest rate hikes began in earnest and the perception of high house prices increased, this proportion fell to 37.3% in May and 12.5 percentage points in June.
Real estate buying sentiment is also rapidly freezing. The nationwide apartment sales and supply index fell to 91 on the 25th of last month following recording 94.1 on May 16th. This is the lowest level since November 18, 2019 (90.3). The sales supply and demand index is a number that the real estate agency analyzes the survey of member brokerage firms and the number of items for sale on the Internet to score the proportion of supply and demand, and is expressed as a score between 0 and 200. The lower the threshold of 100, the more people are selling their houses than there are buying.
From this month, the mortgage loan ratio (LTV) of first-time homebuyers will increase to 80% and the loan limit will increase to 600 million won. The prevailing opinion is that this will lead to a wait-and-see trend. An expert in the real estate industry said, “In their 20s and 30s, the income they can use right away is less than that of the elderly.
Reporter Eunji Shim summit@hankyung.com
