Seoul apartment prices rose 14.74% [1] during the first year of the Lee Jae-myung administration.

This "triple surge" in housing costs places significant financial pressure on residents and suggests that government attempts to stabilize the market through regulation may be producing opposite effects.

According to Professor Seok Byung-hoon of Ewha Womans University, the price increases occurred between May 2022 and May 2023 [2]. During this period, apartment sales prices climbed 14.74% [1], which Seok said was the highest rate on record.

The surge extended beyond ownership to rental markets. Monthly rent prices rose 8.99% [1], also reaching a record high, while jeonse lease-deposit prices increased 6.77% [1]. Seok said that not only home prices but also jeonse and monthly rent prices are skyrocketing.

Experts attribute this volatility to the Lee administration's regulatory framework. The government implemented tightened loan rules and expanded land-transaction-permit zones to curb speculation. However, Seok said the triple surge is the result of various government regulatory policies distorting demand.

These measures were intended to cool the market but instead weakened the ability of the real estate sector to self-adjust. By restricting the flow of transactions and credit, the regulations created a bottleneck that drove prices higher across all three primary housing categories: sales, monthly leases, and jeonse deposits.

Seok said that the current market state reflects a failure of policy to align with economic reality, leading to a situation where the most basic need for housing has become exponentially more expensive for the average Seoul resident.

“Seoul apartment prices rose 14.74% during the first year of the Lee Jae-myung administration.”

The simultaneous rise in sales, monthly rent, and jeonse prices indicates a systemic failure in housing affordability. When regulatory measures like loan restrictions and transaction permits are too rigid, they often reduce supply and distort demand, pushing costs higher for those who cannot afford to buy and are forced into the rental market. This creates a compounding crisis where renters are priced out of both short-term and long-term lease options.