Gangnam-area apartment listings grow nearly six times faster after South Korea's August tax plan

On Asil's figures, most of the year's increase came after the tax plan. Listings in the three districts rose by 4,654 in the roughly ten months to August, about 465 a month ^[13][14]. In the two months that followed they rose by 5,408, about 2,704 a month ^[1][14]. The later pace is nearly six times the earlier one, and those two months account for 54% of the 10,062 listings added over the year ^[17][15][16]. Seocho alone added 1,925, about 36% of the post-August increase ^[18].

A listing count measures willingness to sell, or rather willingness to sell at a price the owner names. The Asil figures count sale listings ^[3], and the report Lee shared does not include sale prices or transaction volumes.

If buyers stay thin, owners who listed ahead of the tax changes will have to cut their asks to find them, and prices in Seoul's most expensive districts fall. Owners can also hold their asks and pull the listings if the tax terms soften. Or the shortage Lee himself blames keeps prices firm. "The sharp drop in building permits, centered on Seoul, from 2022 through 2025 led to a steep fall in housing supply after a time lag, and that is the biggest cause of short-term price instability," he said ^[6]. He said his government has since raised permits and construction starts ^[20]. By his own account, permits turn into homes only after a time lag ^[6].

Lee's remarks make the second path harder to justify. He said South Korea cannot face "another lost 30 years at the end of a game of passing the real estate bomb, however painful things may be right now" ^[2]. In August he had pledged to "root out ruinous property speculation by whatever means necessary" ^[12]. He also said it is "difficult for things to improve quickly with a few short-term remedies" ^[10]. The Seoul Economic Daily read his remarks as a plan to bring forward move-in schedules as far as possible, to head off expectations of shortage-driven price gains ^[21].

The public money he described goes to renters. He said excess tax revenue would go toward long-term public rental homes for young adults and middle-income households, supplied early and at large scale ^[9]. The medium- and long-term causes he named are capital-region concentration, excessive lending and an unfair tax system ^[7].

I think the tax plan moved sellers, given the timing ^[15], and Lee has given them no public reason to wait for a reversal ^[2][5]. A fall in prime prices needs buyers to meet those sellers at lower asks, and so far the record shows only the sellers. The view is wrong if listings keep climbing through year-end while sale prices in Gangnam, Seocho and Songpa hold.