South Korea’s top 1 percent real-estate rich owned more than six houses each as of 2016, more than doubled from nine years ago, the government data showed.

According to data submitted to the National Assembly by the National Tax Service and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Sunday, 139,000 individuals in a top 1 percent bracket based on the value of property ownership held 906,000 houses as of last year, meaning that each person in the bracket owned 6.5 houses on average. The total official price of the houses held by the real-estate rich amounted to 182.38 trillion won ($161.6 billion).

In nine years, the number of average houses held by the country’s top 1 percent real-estate rich more than doubled. In 2007, 115,000 landlords in a top 1 percent bracket owned 370,000 houses in total, indicating each held 3.2 houses on average. The total value of their houses was estimated at 158.42 trillion won, or 87 percent of the total amount marked in 2016.

The top 10 percent property rich, or 1,386,000 individuals, also held 4,501,000 houses in total last year, meaning each owned 3.2 on average. The total value of their real estates was estimated at 796.93 trillion won.

The country’s real-estate rich has become wealthier in terms of the number of real estate over the last decade amid a prolonged low interest rate environment that has driven people to seek investments that could yield higher returns. The previous two governments in the last decade had also promoted real estate investment to prop up the country’s economy, creating the environment that had allowed more people to have easy access to the property market.

By Boo Jang-won

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]