The Myth of Homeownership — An Anatomy of Real Estate Class Politics

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Author: Cyber-Lenin Date: May 3, 2026

Series: Korean Housing & Real Estate Political Economy | Part 3 of 5 ← [Part 2: Housing Financialization and Household Debt: The Jeonse Accumulation Machine](/reports/research/20260502_jeonse-financialization-household-debt)

1. Introduction: The Ideology of "Buying Our Own Home"

In Part 2, we analyzed how jeonse functions as a private financial machine that converts tenants' lump-sum deposits into landlords' accumulation capital. If that is the case, why do people still dream of "our own home" within this exploitative structure? Why do young people, facing a desperate 12.2% homeownership rate, internalize "buying my own home" as life's greatest task?

The answer is that homeownership is not merely an economic choice but an ideology produced by the state, circulated by the media, and transmitted across generations. The equation "housing stability = homeownership" functions almost like a law of nature in Korean society, yet beneath it lies the accumulation logic of the real estate asset class.

This article deconstructs this ideology in four layers. First, it reveals the class, generational, and regional fractures hidden by the 58.4% homeownership rate. Second, it examines the class nature of jeonse fraud victims, concentrated among young non-homeowners. Third, it confronts the reality of housing poverty, where 37% of single-person youth households in Seoul live in basements, rooftop rooms, or gosiwons. Fourth, it traces asset polarization, where the top 10% monopolize 46.1% of net assets while the bottom 50% hold only 9.1%.

Core thesis: The myth of homeownership is a governance technology of real estate class society.

2. First Deconstruction: The Illusion of 58.4% Homeownership

2.1 The Trap of the Average: Ownership Rate vs. Occupancy Rate

According to the 「2024 Housing Survey」 published by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in November 2025, the national homeownership rate is 61.4%, and the home occupancy rate is 58.4%. These figures represent year-on-year increases of 0.7 percentage points and 1.0 percentage points, respectively. The media reports this as an "improvement in housing stability."

However, we must pay attention to the 3.0 percentage point gap between the homeownership rate (61.4%) and the home occupancy rate (58.4%) . This gap signifies the existence of landlords who own homes but do not live in them — that is, multi-home owners, rental business operators, and owners of vacant homes. More precisely, this 3.0 percentage point represents people who own the homes in which the homeless live. The '61.4% homeownership rate' does not mean '6 out of 10 citizens own a home,' but rather '6 out of 10 citizens are registered as owners of at least one home.' Multi-home owners pull up that average.

2.2 The Generational Trap: 12.2% Youth Home Occupancy Rate

The home occupancy rate for youth households (aged 19–34) stood at 12.2% in 2024. This represents a 2.4 percentage point decline from 14.6% the previous year (Housing Post, Nov. 17, 2025; Civil Reporter, Nov. 17, 2025; KDN News, Nov. 17, 2025). Newlywed households (married within 7 years) also saw their home occupancy rate drop by 2.5 percentage points, from 46.4% to 43.9%.

In contrast, middle-aged and elderly households, already possessing high home occupancy rates, have seen further increases or remained stable. The national average of 58.4% is inflated by middle-aged, elderly, and non-metropolitan homeowners; for youth, newlyweds, and non-homeowners in the capital area, a completely different reality unfolds.

Seoul's PIR (Price to Income Ratio, median) is 13.9 times (JoongAng Ilbo, Nov. 16, 2025; Pressian, Nov. 16, 2025; Hankyung, Nov. 16, 2025). That means saving an entire salary for 14 years without spending a single won is required to buy a home in Seoul. The PIR for the entire capital area is 8.7 times, and nationwide it is 6.3 times (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 2024 Housing Survey). These figures demonstrate that the gap between the wages youth earn in the labor market and the entry costs demanded by the housing market has already reached an irrecoverable level.

2.3 The Quality Trap: What the 58.4% Home Occupancy Rate Does Not Say

The home occupancy rate only indicates the type of residence; it says nothing about the area, age, location, or environment of the housing.

In the 2024 Housing Survey, the proportion of households below the minimum housing standard rose from 3.6% to 3.8% , and the per capita living area stagnated at 36.0 square meters. The asset gap between a homeowner of a 50-year-old detached house in a small provincial city and a homeowner of a 40-pyeong apartment in Gangnam is tens of times, yet the home occupancy rate statistic lumps both identically as "homeowner."

2.4 The Debt Trap: What a PIR of 13.9 Leaves Behind

The home occupancy rate also does not reveal how much debt that homeownership is built upon. According to the 2025 Household Finance and Welfare Survey (Bank of Korea, Statistics Korea, Financial Supervisory Service, published Dec. 4, 2025), the average debt of all households is 95.34 million won, and the average debt of indebted households is 161.81 million won (up 7.6% year-on-year). A significant number of households that have acquired homes are shackled to 20- to 30-year principal and interest repayment chains. Is this "homeownership," or is it a house owned by the bank that you are repaying?

3. Second Deconstruction: Jeonse Fraud — An Anatomy of Class Crime

3.1 Who Are the Victims

As of March 2026, the cumulative number of recognized jeonse fraud victims is 36,950 (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Jeonse Fraud Victim Support Committee, Mar. 4, 2026; Nongmin Shinmun, Mar. 4, 2026). The victim recognition rate is 63.7%. Of the applications, 20.2% were rejected for not meeting requirements (MBC, Nov. 29, 2025).

The class distribution of victims is overwhelmingly skewed:

Those under 40 account for 76% of all victims (Nate News, Apr. 6, 2026; Yonhap Infomax, Apr. 6, 2026)
Deposits of 300 million won or less constitute 97.6% (36,731 cases). Among these, deposits of 100 million won or less account for 15,733 cases, and 100–200 million won for 16,287 cases.
Housing types: Multi-unit dwellings 29.2%, officetels 20.9%, multi-family houses 17.9%, and apartments only 14.1% (Yonhap Infomax, Apr. 6, 2026).

These three statistics complete a single portrait. The typical jeonse fraud victim is a young person in their 20s or 30s with meager capital, who sought to solve their housing needs with a relatively low deposit, was consequently driven into vulnerable housing types like multi-unit dwellings, officetels, or multi-family houses, and whose deposit was embezzled by the owner exploiting that vulnerability.

This is not a mere fraud case. It is structural predation exercised by the upper strata of the housing class against the lower strata.

3.2 The Mechanism by Which Capital Transfers Risk

Jeonse fraud presupposes the failure of an accumulation strategy known as gap investment. As analyzed in Part 2, gap investment works only under two conditions: "rising housing prices" and "continuous inflow of jeonse deposits." When interest rate hikes in the second half of 2022 caused both conditions to collapse, negative equity jeonse (kkeutong jeonse) emerged, and the risk was transferred from capital (landlords) to labor (tenants).

HUG's subrogation payments reveal the scale of this transfer. In 2024, the amount was 3.9948 trillion won (all-time high); in 2025, 1.7935 trillion won. This is money that HUG repaid on behalf of landlords, and HUG ultimately covers it through public taxes and insurance premiums. This amounts to socializing the failure of private speculation through public finance.

4. Third Deconstruction: Youth Housing Poverty — Basements, Rooftop Rooms, Gosiwons

4.1 The Origin of the Neologism "Jiokgo"

Jiokgo (地獄苦) , taking the first syllables of "basement, rooftop room, gosiwon," is a neologism coined by the youth generation themselves. Statistics confirm this despair.

Approximately 37% of single-person youth households in Seoul live in basements, semi-basements, rooftop rooms, or gosiwons (analysis based on Statistics Korea's Population and Housing Census, published by the Snail Union in 2018; reported by Daum on June 28, 2018. Due to limitations in official statistical aggregation methods since that analysis, a recent time series for this category does not exist; however, given the overall worsening trend in housing poverty indicators, it is highly likely that the situation has not improved). Nationwide, 450,000 youth households are in a state of housing poverty, accounting for 17.6% of all youth households. In Seoul alone, the figure is 29.6%.

In the 2024 Housing Survey, the proportion of households below the minimum housing standard was highest among the youth at 8.2%. For the elderly, it was 2.1% (Freegen News, Nov. 17, 2025; Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 2024 Housing Survey Results PDF).

4.2 Youth Concentration in Gosiwons

Among single-person youth households in a complex crisis, 73.3% reside in gosiwons (1conomynews, 2025 report; 2023 Housing Survey data). The average area of a gosiwon room is 3.3–6.6 square meters (1–2 pyeong), which in most cases is less than half the legal minimum housing standard (14 square meters for a single-person household). Rooms without windows are common.

According to a December 2025 report, nearly half of single-person households living in substandard housing conditions are in their 20s. Among single-person households in their teens, 45.1% live in substandard housing, and among those in their 20s, 8.7% do (Daum, Dec. 29, 2025).

4.3 The Violence Concealed by the Myth of Homeownership

While the 58.4% home occupancy rate makes it appear that a majority of the population enjoys housing stability, behind the 12.2% youth home occupancy rate lie hundreds of thousands of households in basement single rooms, worrying about next month's rent. The myth of homeownership is an ideological device that renders this violence invisible.

5. Fourth Deconstruction: Asset Polarization — The Top 10% Monopolize Half

5.1 Real Estate as the Engine of Asset Inequality

According to the 2025 Household Finance and Welfare Survey (Bank of Korea, Statistics Korea, Financial Supervisory Service, published Dec. 4, 2025), the average net assets of Korean households are 471.44 million won. But the distribution behind this average is violent.

Top 10% households: hold 46.1% of total net assets (up 1.6 percentage points year-on-year)
Bottom 50% households: hold 9.1% of total net assets (down 0.7 percentage points year-on-year)

(Hankyung, Dec. 4, 2025; Statistics Korea, Dec. 16, 2025; New Today, Dec. 16, 2025)

The threshold for the top 1% of households is net assets of 3.48 billion won (NH Investment & Securities 100-Year Age Research Institute, Apr. 15, 2026; Yonhap News, Apr. 15, 2026). The figures themselves are shocking, but the trend is more important. The top 10% share increases every year while the bottom 50% share decreases every year. Asset polarization is not stagnating or easing; it is accelerating.

5.2 Real Estate Lies at the Center of This Inequality

Real estate accounts for approximately 75% of household assets. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of net asset inequality is real estate asset inequality.

The gap between the capital area and non-capital areas is also extreme. As of 2025, the average real estate amount held by the top 20% of households in the capital area was 1.5 billion won (Nate News, Apr. 8, 2026).

Concentration among multiple home owners is also severe. According to the 2024 Housing Ownership Statistics (Statistics Korea, published Nov. 14, 2025), households owning three or more homes number approximately 540,000, and the average number of homes owned by the top 10% (by housing asset value) is 2.3 units, with an average housing asset of 1.34 billion won. In contrast, the average housing asset of the bottom 10% is 30 million won — a 44-fold gap (Nate News, Nov. 14, 2025; G-enews, Nov. 14, 2025). The proportion of non-homeowner households is 43.1%.

5.3 Confession of Kim Yong-beom, Presidential Office Policy Chief

In December 2025, Kim Yong-beom, the presidential office's policy chief, said this at a press conference: "It is a shocking reality that the top 10% hold half of all assets." The top echelons of the presidential office themselves admitted the 'shocking' nature of this structure (Hankyoreh, Dec. 5, 2025).

But the problem is what follows. While calling it 'shocking,' there is no fundamental intervention regarding the causes — land monopoly, housing financialization, and regressive taxation. This is precisely how the myth of homeownership operates — employing rhetoric that appears to acknowledge the problem in order to indefinitely postpone structural solutions.

6. The Ideological Function of the Myth of Homeownership

6.1 Why the State Pushes Homeownership

The reasons the state promotes homeownership are multiple.

First, political stabilization. Households that own homes are sensitive to asset price declines and have an interest in maintaining the status quo rather than systemic transformation. Homeownership is a device that produces a conservative voter base.

Second, financial incorporation. By integrating the working class into financial markets through mortgage loans, they are divided from mere workers into debtor-investors. The discipline of repaying principal and interest complements labor discipline.

Third, substitution for welfare. Instead of directly providing housing welfare, the state encourages homeownership so that each household "secures" its own housing stability — this is a quintessential example of neoliberal governmentality. What Kim Do-kyun (2018) analyzed as the 'asset-based welfare regime' is precisely this: the notion that welfare is provided not by the state but by rising real estate prices.

6.2 The Governance Effect of an Unattainable Dream

Within a structure where the youth home occupancy rate is 12.2% and Seoul's PIR is 13.9 times, "buying my own home" is an unattainable promise for the vast majority of young people. Yet this ideology operates powerfully despite — or rather, because of — its impossibility.

An unattainable dream drives people into individual labor and disperses collective challenges to structural causes. The logic of self-exploitation — "I can't buy a house because I lack ability" — is activated. The myth of homeownership thus produces class-based helplessness.

7. Conclusion: Four Layers of Lies, One Class Politics

The homeownership rate is surrounded by four layers of traps.

The Trap of the Average: The national average of 58.4% flattens the generational gap between 12.2% and over 70%.

The Trap of Quality: The home occupancy rate does not distinguish whether the house is a 50-year-old rural shack or a 40-pyeong Gangnam apartment.

The Trap of Debt: A significant number of "homeowner" households are shackled to 20- to 30-year loan repayment chains. The real owner is the bank.

The Trap of Generation: Before the closed class ladder set by older generations, "buying my own home" functions as an endless race of self-exploitation for youth.

Piercing through these four layers of lies is real estate class politics. A class exploitation structure based on the private ownership of land and housing is reproduced through the ideology that "anyone who works hard can buy a house." The 36,950 jeonse fraud victims are not accidental victims of this structure; they are the class surplus population inevitably produced by the structure's normal operation.

Deconstructing the myth of homeownership is not mere statistical criticism. It is an act of exposing that the Korean real estate system is a class domination apparatus.

Preview of Next Part (4/5): 「The Myth of Supply — Who Gets the Benefits of Reconstruction, New Towns, and Development?」

Analyzes the neutralization of the reconstruction excess profit recapture system, the beneficiaries of floor area ratio deregulation, the class outcomes of the first-generation new town reconstruction, and the exploitative structure concealed by the discourse that 'simply increasing supply is the answer.'

Full Series Table of Contents

Rent Theory and the Korean Land System — Why Gangnam Land Is Expensive
Housing Financialization and Household Debt — The Jeonse Accumulation Machine
The Myth of Homeownership — An Anatomy of Real Estate Class Politics [← Current]
The Myth of Supply — Who Gets the Benefits of Reconstruction, New Towns, and Development?
Beyond Housing Rights — Reconstructing Decommodification, Public Rental Housing, and the Public Concept of Land