Tenants looking for studio apartments in Seoul are facing a heavier housing cost burden. The average monthly rent for studio units in low-rise multi-unit housing in Seoul rose more than 5% in September from a month earlier to 710,000 won. Gangnam District posted an average of 970,000 won, while Dobong District came in at 480,000 won, a gap of roughly twofold between districts.
The average monthly rent for studio units of 33 square meters or less in low-rise multi-unit housing in Seoul stood at 710,000 won in September, based on a deposit of 10 million won, according to an analysis of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's actual transaction price disclosure system released on the 22nd by Dabang, a real estate information platform. That is up 35,000 won, or 5.2%, from the previous month. The average jeonse (a Korean lease system requiring a large lump-sum deposit instead of monthly rent) deposit, by contrast, fell 2.37 million won, or 1.1%, from a month earlier to 219.91 million won.
Gangnam Studio Rents Hit 970,000 Won, Double Dobong's
By district, Gangnam recorded the highest average monthly rent at 970,000 won, up 10.8% from the previous month and equal to 138% of the Seoul average. Yongsan followed at 890,000 won, with Gwanak at 870,000 won and Seongdong at 820,000 won.
Gwanak's average monthly rent jumped 30.0% from a month earlier. Dabang attributed the increase to transactions involving some newly built studio units entering the data. Yongsan, by contrast, fell 23.1% from the previous month as its August average, which had been pushed up by transactions in some new studio units, corrected.
The cheapest district in Seoul was Dobong, with an average of 480,000 won, a difference of 490,000 won from Gangnam, the most expensive. Within the same city, the monthly housing cost residents must shoulder varies widely by neighborhood.
Gangnam also led in jeonse deposits. Its average jeonse deposit was 287.08 million won, or 131% of the Seoul average. Seocho followed at 269.54 million won, with Gwangjin at 238.64 million won and Mapo at 238.59 million won also at high levels. A total of 11 districts posted average jeonse deposits above 200 million won.
Single-Person Households Top 1.7 Million as Jeonse Shifts to Monthly Rent
As the number of people living alone in Seoul grows, a shift toward monthly rent that adds to housing costs is also becoming more pronounced. Single-person households in Seoul rose 22.2% over five years, from 1,390,701 in 2020 to 1,699,910 last year, according to population census data from Statistics Korea.
Cases of jeonse contracts being renewed as monthly rent leases have also increased. Of existing jeonse contracts on Seoul apartments from January through September this year, 7.53% were renewed after converting to monthly rent, up 1.27 percentage points from 6.25% in the same period last year, according to actual transaction data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. That marks a third straight year of increases since the figure stood at 4.93% in 2023.
Monthly rent leases also accounted for more than half of all lease transactions. Of 172,227 jeonse and monthly rent transactions for Seoul apartments from January through September this year, 87,870 were monthly rent deals, or 51.0% of the total. It is the first time the monthly rent share has exceeded 50% during that period.
Rents are rising as well. The average monthly rent for a Seoul apartment was 1,661,000 won in September, up 218,000 won from 1,443,000 won in the same month last year, according to the Korea Real Estate Board.