Housing is incredibly expensive. Roughly half of Korea lives and works in the Seoul metro area. The average salary is roughly 40,000 USD and the average apartment (maybe 84 square meters) is over 1 million USD.

Government efforts to cool housing inflation have resulted in a 40 percent minimum down payment for a mortgage.

Housing in Seoul and much of Gyeonggi is a pipe dream for most

Well it's their problem if everyone wants to live in the capital. Perhaps it's another manifestation of people being deeply irrational.