SEOUL, March 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's unsold homes rose for the third consecutive month, fueling worry about the sluggish housing market, government data showed Friday.

The number of unsold homes nationwide gained 1.8 percent from a month earlier to 64,874 at the end of February, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The unsold houses began to expand from about 14,000 in late 2021 due to higher borrowing costs, but the number kept falling for the ninth straight month through November last year as local builders refrained from selling newly built homes amid the faltering housing market.

The number rebounded in December last year as builders struggling with credit crunch began to bring new homes into the market despite the low housing prices.

The country's central bank had left its policy rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January last year, after increasing it by 3.0 percentage points for the past one and a half years.

The number of unsold homes in the capital Seoul and its surrounding metropolitan area, in which about half of the country's population resides, jumped 17.7 percent from a month earlier to 11,956 at the end of February.

The number in other areas reduced 1.3 percent to 52,918 in the cited month.

The number of home transactions came in at 43,491 in February, up 1.1 percent from the previous month.

For the first two months of this year, the number of housing permits was 48,722, down 10.4 percent compared with the same period of last year.

The number of housing starts gained 6.6 percent to 34,069 in the two-month period across the country. Enditem

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