[Friday Story] Even One-Room Rent Fluctuates... Youth Flocking to Banjiha

Jeonse Prices Soar, One-Room Apartments Also Rise Over 10% in a Year

A scene from the movie 'Parasite'

#Banjiha Interior, #Banjiha Review.

A (33), who is living in a one-room villa worth 110 million won on a jeonse lease, has been frequently searching these terms lately. As the jeonse contract expiration approaches, the landlord recently demanded a 15 million won increase in the deposit through a real estate agent. Unable to secure the funds easily, A checked the nearby market prices. Most prices had risen by more than 10% compared to when A first moved here about three years ago. A said, "I sometimes think it’s better to invest elsewhere than to tie up 125 million won in a 7-pyeong (23㎡) one-room." Currently, A is eyeing a banjiha property with a 5 million won deposit and 350,000 won monthly rent. It’s a place where water seeps in whenever it rains, and clothes absorb a damp moldy smell that doesn’t go away no matter how much you wash them. Young people are right in the middle of the banjiha scenes vividly depicted in the movie ‘Parasite.’

Following the surge in apartment jeonse prices, the jeonse prices of one-room units and multi-family houses have also soared, pushing young people with limited financial capacity into substandard housing such as basements, banjiha, and rooftop rooms. The strengthening of taxation has led landlords to prefer monthly rent, making jeonse properties scarce, which has compounded the issue. As a result, one-room prices are rising at a frightening pace. Some places have seen deposits increase by nearly half within a year.

According to an analysis by the real estate information platform Dabang of June jeonse transactions for multi-family and detached houses registered in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s actual transaction price disclosure system in Seoul, the average deposit for one-room units under 30㎡ was 168.83 million won. In particular, Gangbuk-gu saw an average deposit of 98.21 million won, a 45.9% increase over one year. Geumcheon-gu (26.7%, 172.75 million won) and Seongbuk-gu (25.6%, 152.57 million won) also showed increases exceeding 20%.

A more serious problem is that the rapid rise in one-room prices is creating demand for substandard housing, pushing up prices of banjiha and rooftop rooms that had been stable for years. A representative from H Real Estate Agency in Gangseo-gu said, "Even rooftop rooms, which are effectively on the 7th floor and whose deposits hadn’t increased for years, recently raised the deposit by 10 million won and still got rented out."

The main demand group for substandard housing is young people. According to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs’ 2019 study on factors affecting housing poverty among young households, 8.9% of household heads aged 19 to 34 live below the minimum housing standards. This means living in places that fail to meet at least one minimum housing criterion such as housing area, number of rooms used by the household, standing kitchen, flush toilet, or bathing facilities. They are effectively cohabiting with risks such as heatwaves and cold snaps, dampness and mold, fire, and crime.

Young people, who mockingly call themselves ‘Byulakgeoji’ (those who have become relatively poor due to rapid increases in real estate and asset prices) and have been pushed into poor housing conditions, have grown weary of the government’s repeated missteps in real estate policy and have started to seek self-help. On interior-related communities, posts asking for advice on ‘banjiha self-interior’ and ‘banjiha one-room interior’ have increased sharply. "To cope with the structurally low lighting in banjiha, they say using bright lighting is effective. Curtains are not good because they don’t ventilate well, and blinds that can be adjusted for angle, protect privacy, and allow ventilation are recommended," said A.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.