00:02You're listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
00:06More than half of Seoul apartment deals in the third quarter,
00:0954.7% comma, were at or above the previous peak price.
00:14LH's president says home prices may fall sharply
00:17and that not buying now costs you nothing if prices stabilize.
00:21Foreign pension money is moving beyond buying rental buildings
00:24into building them from the ground up.
00:26And about 40,000 corporate new-stay rental homes will leave the rental market
00:31as mandatory rental periods end by 2030.
00:34It's Tuesday, October 13th.
00:37Let's look at what's happening in Korea's property market.
00:41Loan limits and funding pressure are pushing buyers toward districts
00:44where prices are still within reach.
00:47Meanwhile, officials are searching for new supply,
00:50from small redevelopment sites in southwest Seoul
00:53to rental homes built by private firms.
00:56And the question of how long newly built rental housing stays in the rental pool
01:00is becoming as important as how much gets built.
01:03Here's what the numbers show.
01:05Of 10,930 Seoul apartment deals in the third quarter,
01:105,977, or 54.7% comma,
01:15were at or above the previous peak for the same complex in size,
01:19up from 38.2% in the first quarter.
01:23Dongdaemengu jumped from 45.7% to 81.9% in that share,
01:28while Gangnamgu slipped from 55.0% to 43.0% comma
01:34as buyers priced out by loan limits moved to cheaper districts.
01:38LH President Lee Siong-hun told a parliamentary audit
01:42that rising supply and rates could bring prices down sharply
01:45and agreed to resign if prices are not stabilized.
01:49Corporate private rentals were about 340,000 homes in 2024,
01:54around 5% of 8.4 million rental households,
01:58according to Samsung Securities,
02:00with professional developer operators under 1% by industry estimates.
02:05MGRV and Canada's CPP Investments set up a $500,001,000,000 joint venture
02:11to buy land and build rental housing,
02:13a shift from earlier foreign deals that bought finished buildings.
02:17Another 39,430 new-stay rental homes across 49 sites
02:22reach the end of their mandatory rental periods by 2030,
02:26with tax burdens making whole complex sales to other landlords difficult.
02:30So, what does this mean for buyers weighing a purchase this year?
02:34Earlier, we said 54.7% of sole apartment deals were at or above the previous peak.
02:40Here's what that actually means for you.
02:43Peak price deals are spreading to districts that used to be cheaper,
02:46so the affordable options are getting less affordable quickly.
02:50Yet the LH President argues rising supply and rates could cool prices,
02:55and an analyst warns that a prolonged Gangnam correction
02:58could weigh on buying sentiment elsewhere.
03:00So, treat the Outer District Rally as sensitive to rates and Gangnam's direction.
03:06What to watch
03:07Whether the Land Ministry's resident briefings, due from the end of this month,
03:12lift interest in the new urban composite housing sites,
03:15which brokers describe as still met with a wait-and-see attitude,
03:18the KT Gaiyang building redevelopment into 168 homes and similar mosaic projects in Seoul's Southwest,
03:26and how the tax gap between built-to-rent and purchased rentals
03:29is addressed so new stay and built-to-rent homes can stay in the rental pool.
03:34That's today's AI Prism, real estate.
03:37This episode was produced with AI assistance based on Seoul Economic Daily Reporting,
03:42and reviewed by a human editor.
03:45AI Prism is a Juan Ifra award-winning series.
03:48We'll be back tomorrow.
03:50You've been listening to AI Prism from Seoul Economic Daily.
