National rental housing losses reach 77.56 billion won
Vacant public rental housing units built to stabilize housing conditions for low-income residents have generated more than 160 billion won ($118 million) in lost rent over five years, with more than half of the empty units sitting unoccupied for over a year, data show. The Korea Land and Housing Corporation needs to overhaul its rental stock to better match actual demand, observers say.
Data submitted by the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) to Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Hwang Hui of the National Assembly's Land and Transportation Committee show that rental income losses from units vacant for more than a year totaled 167.03 billion won between 2021 and 2025.
Annual losses stood at 27 billion won in 2021, dipped to 25.7 billion won in 2022, then climbed to 33.8 billion won in 2023 and 40.5 billion won in 2024, before easing slightly to 39.8 billion won in 2025 — still 47.2 percent higher than the 2021 figure.
By housing type, national rental units recorded the largest losses at 77.56 billion won, or 46.4 percent of the total, followed by Haengbok ("happiness") housing at 44.37 billion won (26.0 percent), public rental at 26.39 billion won (15.8 percent) and permanent rental at 19.68 billion won (11.8 percent).
Losses from Haengbok housing — units aimed particularly at young people and newlyweds — more than doubled, jumping from 5.7 billion won in 2021 to 12.5 billion won in 2025, a rise of more than 2.1 times.
As of August, 38,681 units out of the 976,949 public rental homes under management had been vacant for six months or more, giving an overall vacancy rate of 4.0 percent. Of those, 16,217 units (41.9 percent) had been empty for between six months and one year, while long-term vacancies of more than a year accounted for 58.1 percent, or 22,464 units.
The six-months-or-more vacancy rate was highest for Haengbok housing at 10.1 percent, or 15,496 units — more than 2.5 times the overall average — followed by permanent rental at 4.2 percent (7,071 units), public rental at 2.5 percent (1,983 units) and national rental at 2.4 percent (13,918 units).
LH said vacancies stem from a combination of factors, including poor transport links and inadequate lifestyle infrastructure in newly developed areas on the outskirts of cities, low demand for smaller unit sizes, aging buildings and facilities, and an oversupply of private rental housing in nearby areas.
"It is a serious waste of fiscal resources and a blind spot in residential welfare that public rental housing — built with massive public funding to stabilize housing for young people and ordinary citizens — is being shunned, leading to hundreds of billions of won in lost rent," Hwang said. "Efforts to transform the stock into rental housing that people actually want to live in must be pursued without delay."
hss@heraldcorp.com
