About $2.7 Billion in Stock, Bond Sale Proceeds Flowed Into Home Purchases, Mostly Seoul Apartments

About 3.7 trillion won ($2.7 billion) raised from stock and bond sales was used to buy homes in South Korea from January through April this year.

Data compiled from home-purchase funding plans submitted to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and provided to the office of People Power Party lawmaker Kim Jong-yang showed that 3.7255 trillion won ($2.69 billion) in stock and bond sale proceeds was put toward home purchases during the four-month period.

A home-purchase funding plan discloses the source of money used to buy a property. It must be filed with the relevant local government within 30 days of the contract date for any home purchase in a regulated area, or for homes with a transaction price of 600 million won ($434,000) or more in unregulated areas.

The largest share of those stock and bond sale proceeds flowed into Seoul's housing market. A total of 2.4396 trillion won ($1.76 billion), or 65.5% of the total, was used to buy homes in the capital.

Funds were especially concentrated in Seoul's three Gangnam districts. Proceeds from stock and bond sales used for home purchases totaled 370.7 billion won ($268 million) in Gangnam, 353.2 billion won ($255 million) in Songpa and 290.4 billion won ($210 million) in Seocho.

The share of high-end home purchases financed with stock and bond sale proceeds also climbed.

For homes priced at 1.5 billion won ($1.09 million) or more, the share of transactions using stock and bond sale proceeds was 3.2% in 2020, 4.9% in 2021, 4.5% in 2022, 4.1% in 2023, 4.6% in 2024 and 4.7% in 2025. It had stayed below 5% throughout that period.

That changed this year. The figure was 9.3% in January, 9.3% for Feb. 1-9, 9.1% for Feb. 10-28 and 9.8% in March.

It rose to 13.2% in April, entering double digits for the first time. The February data was split into two periods because proceeds from virtual-asset sales became a separate reporting category for contracts signed from Feb. 10.

Recent gains in South Korea's stock market have fueled the view that investment profits are moving into the high-end housing market. Stocks and real estate are typically seen as alternative asset classes that compete for investor money. More recently, funds realized during the stock rally have been used to buy property.

By age group, buyers in their 30s made the heaviest use of stock and bond sale proceeds for home purchases.

People in their 30s used 1.2592 trillion won ($910 million) in stock and bond sale proceeds to buy homes from January through April. They were followed by buyers in their 40s with 1.1087 trillion won ($801 million), those in their 50s with 802.2 billion won ($580 million), and those aged 60 and older with 489.3 billion won ($354 million).

The total was 65.9 billion won ($47.7 million) for buyers in their 20s and 108 million won ($78,000) for those younger than 20.

Kim said President Lee Jae-myung had called for revitalizing the stock market as an alternative investment channel to ease the concentration of money in real estate, but in reality people are selling stocks to buy homes. The government should take seriously the shift of capital-market funds into real estate and reconsider the direction of its housing policy, he added.

Hong Min-seong, Hankyung.com reporter mshong@hankyung.com