[Edaily Reporter KIM HYUNG-HWAN ] It has been revealed that 7% of lottery winners were deemed “ineligible” after being selected despite not qualifying for the housing lottery—such as because they already owned a home. This appears to be due to the system where applicants enter their own eligibility criteria and points.

According to the “Winners and Ineligible Applicants by Year and Region” report submitted by the Korea Real Estate Board to the office of Rep. Kim Mi-ae of the People Power Party—a member of the National Assembly’s Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Committee—on the 22nd, 53,867 (6.8%) of the 791,856 total winners in housing lotteries from 2021 through the end of July 2026 were deemed ineligible. Looking at the data by year, the ineligibility rate—which stood at 8.8% in 2021—has shown a trend of gradually decreasing each year, falling to 7.8% in 2022, 5.3% in 2023, 5.1% in 2024, 5.1% in 2025, and 4.1% in 2026 (as of the end of July).

By region, Gyeonggi Province accounted for the largest share with 17,205 cases, representing 31.9% of the total. Other regions included: △Incheon (6,170 cases, 11.5%) △South Chungcheong Province (3,709 cases, 6.9%) △Seoul (3,047 cases, 5.7%) △South Gyeongsang Province (3,047 cases, 5.7%) △ North Chungcheong (2,850 cases, 5.3%) △ Busan (2,791 cases, 5.2%) △ Daegu (2,315 cases, 4.3%) △ Daejeon (2,227 cases, 4.1%) △ North Gyeongsang (1,934 cases, 3.6%) △ Gangwon (1,784 cases, 3.3%) △Jeonbuk (1,619 cases, 3%) △Gwangju (1,598 cases, 3%) △Jeonnam (1,574 cases, 2.9%) △Ulsan (1,155 cases, 2.1%) △Sejong (617 cases, 1.1%) △Jeju (225 cases, 0.4%) in that order.

An analysis of 32,646 cases of ineligibility—from 2022, when tracking of such cases began, through July of this year—revealed that cases related to home ownership, such as the applicant or a household member owning a home or a pre-sale right, were the most common at 6,809 cases (20.9%). Special allocation programs, such as those for first-time homebuyers or newlyweds, often require that household members be non-homeowners; failure to meet this requirement was the most frequent cause of ineligibility.

Errors in calculating the period of not owning a home ranked second, with 4,670 cases (14.3%). Other common reasons included issues related to dependents (3,047 cases, 9.3%) and errors in selecting the residence area—such as the designated region or other regions (2,321 cases, 7.1%).

However, among the reasons for ineligibility, “Other (manually entered)” accounted for 4,996 cases and “Unknown” for 1,190 cases; for these combined 6,186 cases, the specific reasons could not be determined. The Korea Real Estate Board explained that since the reasons for ineligibility are entered by the project operators themselves, they may differ from the actual grounds for ineligibility.

Consequently, as the housing lottery system itself is becoming increasingly complex, there are calls to strengthen accurate guidance and additional verification functions starting from the application stage. Rep. Kim Mi-ae emphasized, “Among the reasons for ineligibility, cases related to home ownership and errors in calculating the period of non-homeownership and the number of dependents account for a large proportion,” adding, “We must strengthen guidance and verification functions at the application stage to ensure applicants do not misjudge their eligibility due to the complexity of the housing lottery system.”