The nation saw the sharpest drop in home sales for the month of December since 2008. 

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on Friday that housing transactions came to around 53-thousand-770 in December, down nearly 62 percent from a year earlier. From a month earlier, the figure slipped roughly 20 percent.

By region, Seoul and its surrounding areas saw an on-year drop of some 66 percent in December, while prices in non-capital areas dropped by about 58 percent.

For the entire year of 2021, housing transactions amounted to roughly one million, down nearly 21 percent from 2020. 

The ministry also found that transactions of jeonse, or lumpsum deposit rent and monthly rent reached some 215-thousand-390 last December, up more than 17 percent from the same period last year. 

The figure was up nearly 43 percent from the average transactions posted in the past five years.