One Out of Every Two Seoul Apartment Transactions Is for Properties Under 900 Million Won... Clear Shift Toward Mid- to Low-Priced Units [Real Estate AtoZ]

55% of December Transactions Under 900 Million Won... 15 Percentage Points Higher Than Annual Average
Impact of October 15 Regulatory Measures Reflected in Statistics... Sharp Decline in High-Priced Home Deals
Active Transactions in Mid- to Low-Pric

More than two months after the implementation of the October 15 real estate measures, the Seoul apartment market is being reorganized around mid- to low-priced complexes priced at 900 million won or less. Due to strict lending regulations, purchases of high-priced homes have declined, while demand has concentrated on apartments priced at 900 million won or less, which are subject to exceptions for real homebuyers. As a result, the share of these apartments in total transactions has soared to its highest level of the year. With regulations expected to continue this year and a decrease in the number of rental listings, there are forecasts that this trend will intensify.

Sanggye Jugong 5 Complex in Nowon-gu. Nowon-gu was the district with the highest number of apartment transactions under 900 million won last month. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung.

According to an analysis of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s actual transaction price system on January 8, there were a total of 3,083 apartment transactions in Seoul last month, of which 1,697 were for apartments priced at 900 million won or less. This accounted for 55% of all transactions, setting a new monthly record for the entire previous year. This figure is about 15 percentage points higher than the 2025 annual average of 40.3%. Compared to November (43.6%), it surged by 11.4 percentage points in just one month.

In contrast, the share of high-priced apartment transactions dropped sharply. The proportion of transactions between 900 million won and 1.5 billion won decreased from 29.9% in the previous month to 28.5%, while transactions between 1.5 billion won and 2.5 billion won fell from 16.1% to 11.8%. Notably, for ultra-high-end apartments priced over 2.5 billion won-where the mortgage loan limit is restricted to 200 million won-the share was halved from 10.5% to 4.6% during the same period. This is far below the previous year’s annual average of 7.8%.

By district, Nowon-gu recorded the most transactions under 900 million won (275 cases), followed by Guro-gu (164 cases), Dongdaemun-gu (137 cases), and Seongbuk-gu (125 cases). All four districts have average apartment prices below 1 billion won.

The sharp rise in the share of mid- to low-priced transactions in December is attributed to the “administrative lag” effect following the October 15 measures. With the entire Seoul area, except for the three Gangnam districts and Yongsan-gu-already designated as land transaction permit zones-being designated as regulated areas, it takes about a month for new contracts to be registered as actual transactions after going through the approval process. Effectively, it was only in December that the impact of the announced measures was fully reflected in the statistics.

Yang Ji-young, Senior Specialist at Shinhan Premier Pathfinder, analyzed, “Government regulations are causing demand to cluster around mid- to low-priced properties, which have a lower threshold for financing.”

Under the October 15 measures, the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for regulated areas was lowered from 70% to 40%. However, the Financial Services Commission made exceptions for first-time homebuyers with no home ownership history (LTV 70%) and for low-income and real homebuyers (annual income of 90 million won or less, LTV 60%). Policy loans such as the Didimdol Loan (LTV 70%) and Bogeumjari Loan (LTV 60%) were also maintained. Since loans for low-income and real homebuyers are only available for apartments priced at 800 million won or less, and policy loans are limited to apartments priced at 600 million won or less, buying demand is inevitably concentrated in these price ranges. On the other hand, for apartments priced over 1 billion won, it has become extremely difficult to enter the market without sufficient personal capital.

Ham Youngjin, Head of Real Estate Research Lab at Woori Bank, said, “The current market is reacting more sensitively to the tangible pressure of lending regulations than to expectations of interest rate cuts,” adding, “In a situation where instability in the rental market and a shortage of listings are intensifying, the trend of ‘real homebuyers relocating to self-owned homes’-centered on mid- to low-priced properties where financing is possible-will continue for the time being, especially in the outskirts of Seoul.”