Loans to Multi-Home Owners Exceed 100 Trillion Won, with Half Concentrated in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province

[Financial News] The outstanding loan balance held by multi-home owners has surpassed 100 trillion won, and more than half of that amount is concentrated in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province.
According to data submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) to the office of National Policy Committee member Kang Min-kook, the outstanding loan balance of multi-home owners stood at 102.9 trillion won as of the end of January this year, with 604,000 individual loan cases.
Multi-home owners are defined as individual borrowers who, at the time of taking out a new loan, owned at least two homes per household, or who already owned one home and then took out a mortgage loan to purchase another residence.
By region, Gyeonggi Province had the largest amount at 31.9 trillion won across 180,000 cases, followed by Seoul with 20 trillion won (79,000 cases) and Busan Metropolitan City with 11 trillion won (62,000 cases). Combined, Gyeonggi Province and Seoul accounted for 50.4% of the total loan balance.
In particular, the outstanding balance in Seoul rose 21% in just over a year, from 16.5 trillion won at the end of 2022 to 20 trillion won. By district within Seoul, Gangdong District had the highest balance at 1.9 trillion won, followed by Gangnam District with 1.7 trillion won; Seocho District and Seongdong District with 1.3 trillion won each; Yangcheon District with 1.2 trillion won; and Songpa District and Dongdaemun District with 1.1 trillion won each, indicating that major residential areas carry especially large loan balances.
By collateral type, apartment-backed mortgages made up the vast majority. Apartment mortgage balances totaled 91.9 trillion won, accounting for 89.3% of the total, while non-apartment collateral loans stood at 11 trillion won, or 10.7%. In terms of repayment structure, most loans were amortizing. Amortizing loans amounted to 95.7 trillion won, or 93.0% of the total, while bullet loans with lump-sum repayment at maturity came to 7.2 trillion won, or 7.0%.
Kang Min-kook said, "The government’s main tool for financial regulation on multi-home owners is to block loan rollovers, but 93% of these mortgages are not structured in a way that makes them subject to extension." He added, "Considering that 11% of the collateral is non-apartment housing, overly aggressive financial regulation could inadvertently hurt the rental market for people without homes. The pace of regulation and its policy effectiveness therefore need to be carefully weighed."
coddy@fnnews.com Ye Byung-jung Reporter