Two newly published analyses of the Seoul housing market point in the same direction: government curbs on leveraged speculative buying are working, while separately, a straight-line projection of current price growth shows property tax bills on Seoul apartments could rise by more than half within four years. Transactions suspected of being “gap investment” (갭투자) — buying a home largely on credit, topped up with a tenant’s jeonse (전세, a lump-sum rental deposit) rather than cash equity — fell 67.8% across Seoul’s 25 districts, to 2,442 deals in the roughly 11 months after Oct. 15, 2025, from 7,579 in the year before, according to an analysis obtained by Seoul Economic Daily (서울경제, Seoul Economic Daily) through the office of Rep. Kang Deuk-koo (강득구) of the Democratic Party of Korea (더불어민주당), a member of the National Assembly’s Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee (국토교통위원회).
The decline follows the government’s Oct. 15, 2025 housing stabilization package, which designated all 25 Seoul districts and 12 areas in Gyeonggi Province as land transaction permit zones — expanded in July 2026 to include Hwaseong’s Dongtan, Guri, and Yongin’s Giheung. Inside a permit zone, a buyer needs local-authority approval before signing a contract and is, in principle, required to live in the home, which blocks the jeonse-plus-loan structure gap investment depends on. The analysis counted purchases where the home carried both a rental deposit and an institutional loan and the buyer listed “rental” as the intended use — an indicator, not an exact count, of suspected gap-investment deals.
The pullback was uneven. Suspected gap-investment deals fell in 23 of 25 districts, with Seongdong down 88.4%, and Mapo, Nowon, Gangdong and Gangnam all down roughly 80%; only Jungnang and Geumcheon saw increases. By age, the decline was shallower among younger buyers — down just 18.6% among buyers in their 20s and 65.1% among those in their 30s, versus 76.4% for buyers in their 40s. As a result, buyers in their 20s and 30s now make up a larger share of the remaining suspected gap-investment deals than before the curbs — the 20s’ share more than doubled, to 7.9% from 3.1%. Seoul Economic Daily attributes this to capital-constrained younger buyers still trying to get into a first home using whatever leverage remains available, concentrated in homes priced at ₩1.5 billion or below that qualify for loans of up to ₩600 million.
Separately, an analysis submitted by KB Kookmin Bank (KB국민은행) to Rep. Shin Dong-wook (신동욱) of the People Power Party (국민의힘), a member of the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee, modeled property tax on 125 major apartment complexes — the five highest-value complexes in each of Seoul’s 25 districts — for a single-homeowner household. Assuming Seoul apartment prices keep rising at this year’s January–September pace of 10.3% a year and the Fair Market Value Ratio (공정시장가액비율) stays at the current 45%, average property tax principal would rise 53.5%, from about ₩2.197 million (~US$1,600) this year to about ₩3.373 million (~US$2,500) in 2030. The increase would be sharpest in the comparatively cheaper Nowon, Dobong and Gangbuk districts — up 76.1%, from about ₩753,000 to about ₩1.326 million — and in Geumcheon, Gwanak and Guro, up 65.3%, from about ₩1.102 million to about ₩1.822 million, compared with a 46.6% rise in the affluent Gangnam, Seocho and Songpa districts (about ₩5.28 million to about ₩7.74 million, per Chosunbiz’s reporting of the same analysis) and a 49.5% rise in Mapo, Yongsan and Seongdong (about ₩3.31 million to about ₩4.95 million). If regulators raise the Fair Market Value Ratio to 50%, the analysis projects the 2030 average would instead rise 73.7%, to ₩3.82 million; at 60%, it would more than double, to 2.14 times this year’s level, reaching ₩4.71 million. Even if price growth is halved to 5.15% a year, the analysis still projects a 28.6% increase at the current 45% ratio.
Whether the current curbs persist is an open policy question with one dated marker: Hong Ji-sun, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said at a confirmation hearing last month that a decision on whether to extend the land transaction permit zone designations covering Seoul and other areas would follow a close review of market conditions, expected by year-end. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (국토교통부, MOLIT) has already moved to pair the restrictions with carve-outs for owner-occupier buyers, extending deferrals of the owner-occupancy requirement to transactions involving homes currently under lease while keeping the no-second-home and two-year residency conditions intact. On tax, both outlets that reported the KB Kookmin Bank simulation caution that it is a projection built on specific assumptions — a continued 10.3% annual price rise and an unchanged or higher Fair Market Value Ratio — and that the actual 2030 tax burden will depend on how home prices and government tax policy actually move between now and then.
For property owners and investors with exposure to the Seoul market, the two trends point in the same direction without being the same lever: the permit-zone rules make it harder to buy speculatively into Seoul — especially using jeonse-backed leverage — unless the buyer intends to actually occupy the home, while the tax outlook raises the holding cost of property already owned, with outer-district, historically lower-tax homes facing the steepest proportional increases. Both policy variables — whether permit zones are extended beyond this year, and whether the Fair Market Value Ratio is raised — remain undecided, and the official outlook stops at “under review,” per the named sources above; no outlet has reported a confirmed 2030 tax rate or a confirmed permit-zone renewal decision.
References
Seoul Economic Daily – Suspected Gap-Investment Deals in Seoul Plunge 68% After Permit Rule / BigGo Finance – South Korea’s Seoul Apartment Property Taxes Could Surge Over 50% by 2030 if Home Prices Keep Rising / Chosunbiz – Seoul Apartment Tax Soars as Prices Climb, Hitting 54% by 2030
