"Thirty-six percent of wages go to rent"... It would take 26 years of saving every penny to buy a home in Seoul

[The Financial News] The price of apartments in Seoul has climbed to a record high compared with workers’ wages, pushing housing costs to their heaviest level ever. One estimate shows that, based on the average monthly wage, a worker would have to save every penny for 26 years to afford an average-priced apartment.
Lee Jong-uk, a member of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee of the National Assembly and a senior lawmaker of the People Power Party (PPP), released an analysis on the 20th based on data from the Korea Real Estate Board (KREB) and the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL).
According to Lee, the average sale price of an apartment in Seoul in February this year was 1.31145 billion won. That is 312 times last year’s average monthly wage for workers, which stood at 4.205 million won.
This matches the record high set in December 2021 under the Moon Jae-in administration. At that time, the average apartment sale price in Seoul was 1.15146 billion won, while the average monthly wage for workers was 3.689 million won, also a ratio of 312 times.
The figures imply that a worker would need to save their entire salary for about 26 years, without spending any of it, to buy an apartment in Seoul.
The burden of monthly rent has also increased. The average monthly rent for an apartment in Seoul has risen to 36% of the average worker’s monthly wage, setting a new all-time high. In other words, more than one-third of workers’ income is now being spent on housing costs.
y27k@fnnews.com Seo Yoon-kyung Reporter