"Urgent Sale" Signs Everywhere... Seoul Apartment Buying Sentiment Shrinks for 11 Consecutive Weeks

As the decline in Seoul apartment prices widens, buyer sentiment has continued to fall for 11 consecutive weeks.

According to the Korea Real Estate Board on the 22nd, this week's Seoul apartment sales supply-demand index dropped by 0.7 points to 85.7 from last week's 86.4. The supply-demand index has been declining for 11 weeks since the temporary exclusion of multi-homeowners from the capital gains tax surcharge was implemented on May 9. The sales supply-demand index is calculated by analyzing surveys from member real estate agencies and the number of online listings, quantifying the ratio of demand (buyers) to supply (sellers). An index below the baseline of 100 indicates that there are more sellers than buyers in the market. The sales supply-demand index in Gyeonggi Province fell from 90.5 last week to 90.0 this week, while Incheon dropped from 91.6 to 88.5. Accordingly, the metropolitan area sales supply-demand index also declined by 0.9 points from 89.4 last week to 88.5 this week.

Concerns over further interest rate hikes and falling housing prices have deepened the wait-and-see sentiment. According to the Seoul Real Estate Information Plaza as of this date, apartment sales in Seoul during the first half of this year (January to June) totaled 7,868 transactions based on contract dates, which is only about 30% of the previous low of 25,828 transactions in the first half of last year. Although there is about a week left for the registration reporting deadline for June sales contracts (within 30 days after the contract), the trend suggests that the total sales volume for the first half of the year will fall short of 10,000 transactions.

Seoul apartment prices have also been declining for eight consecutive weeks. This week, Seoul apartment prices fell by 0.05% compared to last week's -0.04%, marking the largest decline since the survey on May 4, 2020 (-0.06%). The weakness in Seoul apartment prices is also confirmed by private statistics. According to KB Kookmin Bank statistics, Seoul apartment prices, which were flat last week, dropped by 0.02% this week, marking the first decline in 3 years and 1 month since the survey on June 10, 2019 (-0.01%).

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