South Korea's home transactions continued to shrink from a year earlier in May, the government said Tuesday, in an apparent sign of a slowdown in the property market.

The number of home transactions came to 89,267 last month, down 18.8 percent from the same month last year, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.


May marked the sixth consecutive month of on-year drop following a 28.4 percent plunge in the previous month.

The May tally, however, marks a 3.4-percent rise from the previous month.

In the first five months of the year, home transactions tumbled 25.1 percent from the same period last year.

Such a drop was partly attributed to a base effect stemming from record numbers posted in 2015 due to a range of government measures to revitalize the real estate market as a way of bolstering growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

In 2015, home transactions spiked 18.8 percent on-year to an all-time high of 1,193,691.

With some of the government measures coming to end in late 2015, the housing market too began to wane.

In May, home transactions in the capital region tumbled 16.1 percent on-year, while the number for rural areas plunged 21.8 percent.

By type, transactions involving apartments units dropped 24.2 percent, with those involving row and detached houses also slipping 5.2 percent and 9.9 percent on-year, respectively, the ministry said. (Yonhap)