Seoul apartment prices now cost fifteen times the average income

In the bustling neighborhoods of Seoul, the dream of homeownership has transformed into a generational crisis. An average apartment in the capital now commands a price tag of 1.2 billion won, a figure so high that it would take a typical household fifteen years of saving every single penny they earn to afford it. This financial mountain has fundamentally altered the social fabric of the city, causing the number of new marriages to plummet by nearly half compared to the peaks seen in the 1990s.