"I Should Have Just Stayed Put"... A 30-Something’s Cry Over Missing Out on 2 Billion Won in Samsung Electronics Gains

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\r\n[Financial News] A story about an office worker who sold all of his Samsung Electronics shares nine months ago to buy a home for his newlywed life, and even took out loans to succeed in his dream of owning a house, is drawing attention.
According to News 1 on the 10th, a post titled "I bought a house in October 2025, and it’s been so hard" was recently uploaded to the anonymous workplace community Blind.
The writer, identified as A, bought an older apartment in Gongdeok-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, for 1.8 billion won in October 2025, when he got married.
At the time of the purchase, A borrowed a total of 900 million won by using every available means, including money borrowed from his parents and an overdraft account. In particular, he sold all of his Samsung Electronics shares, which were worth about 500 million won at the time, to raise funds.
A lamented, "The home price has risen by about 100 million won since I bought it, but if I had kept the Samsung Electronics shares I sold back then, they would now be worth 2 billion won. I regret spending the entire summer visiting more than 30 properties. If I had just stayed still, I would have had 2 billion won in hand without any debt."
The problem is not limited to opportunity cost. The real decline in quality of life caused by excessive debt is also severe. According to A, monthly principal and interest payments on the 700 million won loan, excluding the money borrowed from his parents, amount to about 3.8 million won.
A, who is the sole breadwinner, takes home about 6.5 million won a month. With roughly 60% of his income going toward loan repayments, only about 2.7 million won remains for living expenses. A said, "I hate myself and feel so miserable that I even want to die," expressing deep psychological distress.
Public reaction to the story has been mixed. Some offered comfort, saying, "It would have been realistically impossible to hold on until Samsung Electronics rose fourfold," while others pointed out that "real estate has value as a place to live, so a simple comparison of returns is meaningless."
In fact, Samsung Electronics has recently posted a record-breaking stock rally amid surging demand for AI semiconductors and the full-scale expansion of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) supply. Still, analysts say the comparison is merely a hindsight-based assumption, given the long period of sideways trading when the stock was stuck in the so-called "80,000-won Samsung" and "90,000-won Samsung" ranges.
An official in the financial investment industry said, "As the stock market has strengthened recently, a sense of deprivation over missed gains after buying a home is spreading among office workers as a kind of FOMO syndrome." The official added, "But because stocks are volatile assets, it is risky to dismiss a home purchase for owner-occupancy, made with loan repayment capacity in mind, as a failed investment."
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moon@fnnews.com Moon Young-jin Reporter