The number of homes owned by foreign nationals came to 91,453 in December 2023, with 55 percent of them belonging to Chinese nationals, government data showed Friday.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport released a report on foreign-owned real estate assets, which showed that 0.48 percent of all homes in the country are owned by non-South Koreans.

The number of foreign-owned homes rose 4.8 percent compared to the previous report released six months ago, with 4,230 additional homes changing from a local to a foreign owner.

Chinese owned 50,328 homes, up 6.3 percent compared to six months earlier. The majority of the homes -- 48,332 -- were apartments, while the rest were houses.

Next on the list were US citizens, who owned 20,947 homes, followed by Canadians with 6,089, Taiwanese with 3,284, and Australians with 1,837.

The report showed that 73 percent of foreign-owned homes were located in the Greater Seoul area, which includes Gyeonggi Province and the metropolitan cities of Seoul and Incheon. About 38.4 percent were in Gyeonggi, 24.8 percent in Seoul and 9.8 percent in Incheon.

Most foreign homeowners --93.4 percent -- owned one home, but 5.2 percent owned two, 578 owned three, 194 owned four, and 449 owned five homes.

A total of 264.6 square kilometers of land was foreign-owned, which is about 0.26 percent of the entire South Korean territory. The amount of foreign-owned land has been increasing since 2011, when foreign nationals owned 190.5 square kilometers.

Americans led all foreign nationalities in terms of land ownership, owning 53.5 percent, followed by Chinese, who owned 7.9 percent.