More than 43,000 public rental homes built or purchased by Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) have sat empty for more than six months. While Seoul struggles with a housing shortage, public rental units outside the capital area are increasingly failing to find tenants. Critics say the government needs effective measures, including supply plans that reflect regional housing demand.
According to data submitted by LH to Rep. Chung Hee-yong of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, 35,717 built-to-lease units had been vacant for six months or longer as of September 2026, along with 7,609 purchased rental units as of August. Combined, the 43,326 empty homes represented a vacancy rate of 3.7% for each type against total units under management.
The regional gap was stark. In Seoul, vacancy rates were low for both types, at 0.7% for built-to-lease units and 1.0% for purchased units. In Daegu, the figures were 6.1% and 5.1%, and in North Gyeongsang Province, 5.5% and 3.8%. Combining both types, the vacancy rate in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province stood at about 5.6%, roughly seven times the 0.8% in Seoul. The rate was 2.6% in the greater Seoul area and 4.7% elsewhere, 1.8 times higher outside the capital region.
In some areas, vacancy rates climbed into double digits. In South Chungcheong Province, the rate reached 10.6% for built-to-lease units and 19.5% for purchased units. Sejong recorded 10.2% and 16.5%. Even within the same public rental programs, the scale of vacancies varies widely depending on local demand.
LH has been easing eligibility requirements, such as income and asset limits, to recruit tenants and reduce long-term vacancies. The share of applications that turn into actual contracts, however, has fallen.
LH data on recruitment under eased eligibility rules for unleased homes show the number of complexes included rose to 282 last year from 204 in 2022. Public notices offering relaxed eligibility increased to 420 from 313 over the same period. Contracts, by contrast, fell 53.9% to 6,719 units last year from 14,571 in 2022. Through August this year, contracts totaled just 3,161 units. That suggests easing eligibility alone cannot resolve vacancies in areas with weak demand.
Prolonged vacancies could also strain LH's finances, since the company bears the cost of acquiring and maintaining the homes while collecting no rental income. Some warn that if population decline and shrinking housing demand outside the capital area coincide, rising numbers of empty homes could accelerate the hollowing out of local communities.
"For complexes where demand is insufficient, LH should move up the timing of easing income and asset requirements and widen the scope of those exemptions," Chung said. "We need pre-emptive measures tailored to local conditions, such as giving priority allocation at regional complexes to local governments, universities, small and medium-sized companies and junior military officers, and converting unit types with weak demand into general-purpose units."