Why 40 years without a home counts as 10 — the 84-point housing-subscription score starts on the day the rules say

A 40-year-old who has never owned a home in their life. Assuming "40 years homeless" and running the subscription score, the homeless-period component comes out at 22 points, ten years' worth. That is because the rules count the homeless period from age 30. The score maxes at 84, but it does not accumulate from living carefully; it accumulates only when you fit the start dates and recognition conditions the rules define.

When first-tier applicants for private housing outnumber units, the point system ranks them for part of the units and the rest go by lottery; the shares come in step four. The score is the sum of three parts: homeless period 32, dependents 35, subscription-account tenure 17, for 84 in total. The basis is Annex 1 of the Housing Supply Rules. Separate tracks such as special supply are outside this episode.

Step one, the homeless period. Two points for under a year, two more per year, 32 at 15 years or more. The question is where the count starts. Annex 1 counts the continuous homeless period from the day the applicant turns 30. Even if you were homeless from 20, the ten years before 30 earn nothing. There is one exception: if you married before 30, the count starts from the marriage-registration date. There is also a reset rule. If you or your spouse ever owned a home, the count restarts from the day you disposed of it and became homeless; if it happened more than once, from the most recent such day. There are exceptions where Rules Art. 53 treats you as homeless, such as owning only one home of 60㎡ or less with a published price of ₩100M or less (₩160M in the capital region).

Step two, dependents, 35 points. Five points each, starting at a base of 5 even with none, and 35 at six or more. It carries the largest weight, so its recognition conditions are the strictest. A spouse counts. Children count only if unmarried. To include a lineal ascendant such as a parent, three conditions apply: you must be the head of household; they must have been on the same resident registration continuously for at least 3 years as of the announcement date; and if either that parent or their spouse owns a home, neither of them counts. If your mother owns nothing but a house is in your father's name, your mother cannot be counted either. A child aged 30 or over must have been on the same registration for at least 1 year.

This component is also one the Ministry of Land examines separately. In May 2026 there was a full audit of winners with implausibly large-family perfect-score accounts. Moving addresses just to manufacture points is subscription fraud, and it may not end with a cancelled win.

Step three, account tenure, 17 points. One point under six months, two from six months to a year, then one more per year, 17 at 15 years or more. How much you deposited does not enter the score, only when you enrolled, and the reference date is the first enrollment. Changing the account type, the amount, or the name does not matter. It is counted from the original enrollment date. Tenure from enrolling as a minor counts for at most 5 years in the point system (Rules Art. 10(6); for periods up to 2023, at most 2 of them), and if your spouse also holds an account you may add the points for 50% of the spouse's tenure, up to 3 (Annex 1 note 2, total capped at 17). The homeless period vanishes when you buy a home and dependents change with circumstances, but tenure never runs backward. The deposit and payment-count requirements for subscription eligibility are a separate rule.

Step four, which pool to enter. In a first-tier competition not everyone is picked by score. In a speculation-overheated zone, units of 60㎡ or less are 40% point-based, 60 to 85㎡ are 70%, and over 85㎡ are 80%, with the rest by lottery. In a subscription-overheated area the shares are 40%, 70% and 50%. Elsewhere the point-based share is set by the local government at 40% or less, and large units are in principle all lottery (Rules Art. 28). High scorers do better where the point-based share is large; low scorers look for pools with more lottery units. Wherever units are allocated on points, a household that won on points within the past 2 years is excluded from the point-based draw and moves to the lottery. One-home households are excluded too, except for units whose share the local government sets outside speculation-overheated zones and subscription-overheated areas (Art. 28(6)).

Nobody calculates the subscription score for you. When you apply, you enter your own score, and if it is wrong the consequence is yours. Inflate it and win, and the win is cancelled as ineligible with a subscription ban for a period. The reverse is also common: people understate their score because they did not know about the marriage-date start, the restart after a past sale, or that a parent had not yet reached 3 years of cohabitation.

The calculation goes in three steps. First, fix your start date: your 30th birthday, your marriage-registration date, or the day you most recently became homeless. Second, check dependents against the conditions, which are head of household, the 3-year and 1-year cohabitation periods, and whether a parent owns a home. Third, confirm the account's first enrollment date with the bank. With those three dates right, the score simply falls out of the table.

Two things to do now. Pin down the three dates in documents, and with that score check the point-based share for the region and unit size you are targeting, then choose your pool. Note that first-tier eligibility, deposits, special supply and newborn priority supply are each separate rules, and details differ by announcement. Before applying, read that complex's recruitment announcement without fail.