Seoul apartment jeonse prices rise 8.18% this year, more than double the national pace

Hong's lower bound is the better number to test. Eighty percent of 268,000 is 214,400 starts. With 86,739 begun through August, the four months from September to December need about 127,700 more, or roughly 31,900 a month ^[17]. At 88%, the requirement is about 37,300 a month ^[17]. Builders averaged about 10,800 a month from January to August ^[16]. The minister's forecast is already a step down from the target, and it still needs the monthly rate to run 2.9 to 3.4 times what it has been ^[18]. "Starts tend to be concentrated in the fourth quarter," Hong said ^[14]. The full target would take about 45,300 a month ^[19].

A start in November does not put an apartment on the lease market this winter. Hong blamed speculative demand and a supply shortfall for the price gains, pointing to fewer construction starts and delayed move-ins ^[10]. "Over the past three years, housing has not been supplied adequately, leaving supply short of demand," the minister said ^[10].

The jeonse index gives the minister some support. Seoul's gain of 0.16% in the fourth week of September ^[1] is below the year's average of about 0.2% a week (8.18% spread over roughly 39 weeks) ^[20]. Seocho fell 0.23% that week and Gangnam was flat ^[3]. The other possibility is that the cooling stays in the south. Seongbuk, Gangbuk and Nowon each rose 0.36%, Dobong 0.30% and Dongdaemun 0.28% ^[3]. Held for a year, 0.36% a week compounds to about 20% ^[21]. One week is a thin base for that kind of projection. Still, Nowon and Seocho moved 0.59 percentage points apart in seven days ^[23].

The poll measures what people expect, not what prices are doing. Realmeter surveyed 500 Seoul residents over two days for Kang, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 points ^[4]. At the bottom of that range, 68.6% still expect leases to cost more ^[22]. Seventy-four percent said tenants' housing burden had grown, and 58.4% said it had grown sharply ^[6]. Both sides of the record come from lawmakers: the starts figures from Jeong, of the People Power Party ^[13], and the poll from Kang, of the Democratic Party ^[4].

I think Seoul's lease costs keep rising after the year-end narrowing Hong described. "By the end of the year, the increase in housing prices will narrow to some degree," the minister said ^[9]. That forecast is about housing prices, and the evidence Hong offered for it came from Gangnam and Yongsan ^[8]. The fastest jeonse gains are in the outlying districts ^[3]. The counter-case is that the citywide slowdown is real and reaches those districts by December, while fourth-quarter starts arrive the way the minister expects. I am wrong if the weekly readings for Seongbuk, Gangbuk and Nowon fall toward Gangnam's zero before the year ends.