Seoul private apartment pre-sale price hits W2b for standard unit

Rising construction costs have pushed the average pre-sale price of standard 84-square-meter private apartments in Seoul back above 2 billion won ($1.49 million), while the smaller 59-square-meter size has crossed the 1.5 billion won mark.

Real estate pre-sale research firm Realhouse said Thursday that its analysis of Korea Real Estate Board subscription data showed the average pre-sale price for 84-square-meter private apartments in Seoul stood at 2.00063 billion won last month.

The figure first exceeded 2 billion won in May at 2.14 billion won before retreating into the 1.9 billion won range, recovering the 2 billion won threshold after four months. Compared with the same month last year, the price rose 22.85 percent.

Gyeonggi Province followed at 910.52 million won (up 9.52 percent year on year), then Busan at 831.48 million won (down 4.34 percent), Daegu at 786.05 million won (up 0.12 percent) and Incheon at 773.36 million won (up 19.53 percent).

The national average pre-sale price for the standard unit size came to 722.9 million won, up 9.61 percent from a year earlier.

For 59-square-meter units, Seoul posted the highest average pre-sale price at 1.59 billion won, up 31.49 percent from the same month last year.

Gyeonggi Province came in at 621.7 million won (down 3.07 percent), followed by Busan at 561.06 million won (down 4.27 percent) and Incheon at 536.88 million won (up 12.28 percent).

A total of 11,554 units across 22 complexes were newly supplied nationwide last month.

That was up 42.8 percent from the previous month's 8,092 units but down 2.3 percent from the 11,822 units recorded in the same month last year.

In Seoul, 85 units at Brownstone Mokdong in Yangcheon-gu's Mokdong neighborhood went on pre-sale, of which 29 were available for general subscription.

"The standard construction cost has been raised three times this year, climbing more than 7 percent over the past year, and the construction cost index has risen for 12 consecutive months, meaning the burden of construction costs keeps growing," a Realhouse official said. "It will not be easy for new apartment pre-sale prices to come down for now."