Young buyers sweep 69% of first-time home purchases in Seoul, flocking to Eunpyeong, Nowon and Gangseo

The number of first-time buyers of collective residential buildings — including apartments, officetels, row houses and multi-family homes — in Seoul hit its highest level since November 2021 last month, as housing demand from non-homeowners continued to grow. Buyers in their 20s and 30s drove much of the increase, pointing to concentrated demand from young people and newlyweds.

Real estate platform Zigbang, citing court registry data, said Tuesday that 7,547 people made their first-ever purchase of a collective building in Seoul in July, based on figures tallied as of Wednesday. That was the highest monthly count since November 2021, when 7,886 purchases were recorded, and represented a 4.7 percent increase from June's 7,210.

By age group, buyers in their 20s and 30s posted the sharpest gains in July. First-time purchases by buyers in their 20s rose from 765 in June to 887 in July, lifting their share of the total from 10.6 percent to 11.8 percent. Those in their 30s also increased, from 3,979 to 4,300, with their share expanding from 55.2 percent to 57.0 percent. Together, the two age groups accounted for nearly 69 percent of all first-time purchases in July. By contrast, buyers in their 50s fell from 654 to 571 and those in their 60s dropped from 321 to 274, confirming that the July surge was concentrated among younger buyers.

First-time home purchases qualify for relatively relaxed lending standards compared with general home purchases, a factor analysts say has improved buying conditions for buyers in their 20s and 30s with limited financial resources. A shortage of jeonse listings has also pushed some renters toward buying, while others who had been considering a purchase appear to have moved ahead — a combination of forces analysts say is driving the broader trend.

Among Seoul's districts, Eunpyeong-gu recorded the highest share of first-time purchases. The district logged 841 transactions in July, accounting for 11.1 percent of the Seoul total of 7,547. Its monthly share had held in the 5 to 6 percent range earlier this year — 6.5 percent in January, 5.0 percent in February, 5.3 percent in March, 6.1 percent in April and 5.9 percent in May — before jumping to 8.7 percent in June and 11.1 percent in July, roughly 1.9 times the May level in just two months.

Eunpyeong-gu's appeal to first-time buyers stems from its relatively accessible price range within Seoul, convenient access to the city center via subway lines 3 and 6, and large-scale residential complexes built through redevelopment projects.

Other districts with high first-time purchase counts in July were Nowon-gu (607 transactions, 8.0 percent), Gangseo-gu (526, 7.0 percent), Songpa-gu (458, 6.1 percent) and both Seongbuk-gu and Guro-gu (413 each, 5.5 percent). Nowon, Gangseo, Seongbuk and Guro share a similar profile to Eunpyeong-gu, with a high proportion of transactions below 1 billion won ($707,000). Songpa-gu stands apart as a relatively high-priced market — deals in the 2.5 billion to 4 billion won range made up 30.3 percent of its transactions — yet it still ranked among the top districts for first-time purchases, suggesting that genuine end-user demand is broad-based regardless of price tier.

Against this backdrop, the government on Thursday announced two policy packages: a rapid housing supply plan aimed at stabilizing the jeonse, monthly rent and sales markets, and a comprehensive set of real estate financing measures. The supply plan includes additional provision of more than 230,000 homes in the Greater Seoul area — including 100,000 units on new public land sites — along with shorter timelines for breaking ground on public land projects, tax and financing incentives for early ground-breaking, and eased consent-rate requirements for redevelopment associations to improve private-sector supply conditions. The financial package expands guarantees and funding support for real estate project financing while maintaining demand-management policies such as tighter oversight of jeonse loans, and introduces targeted support for genuine end-users — including a three-part youth housing support package aimed at young buyers.

Kim Eun-seon, head of Zigbang's big data lab, said both measures focus on strengthening the role of finance in boosting housing supply and supporting genuine end-users such as young buyers, but cautioned that supply effects would take time to materialize and that the impact of financial support would vary depending on the details and timing of implementation. "Given the breadth of what has been announced, it will be worth watching how each individual measure takes shape at the execution stage and what effect it has on transaction trends in areas where first-time buyers are concentrated," she said.