July Filings Show an Eightfold Price Gap Across Korea's Capital-Region Apartments

Apartment sale prices registered with South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) in July 2026 reveal a capital-region market stretched across an extraordinary spread: a 49-square-meter unit in Incheon’s Yeonsu district changed hands for 186 million won on July 28, while a 50-square-meter flat of nearly identical size — and similar early-1990s vintage — in Seongnam’s Bundang district sold for 1.475 billion won the day before. On a per-square-meter basis, that is close to an eightfold difference between two small apartments in the same greater Seoul commuter belt.

Bundang’s Premium Holds Even on the Ground Floor

The month’s most striking print came from Imaechon Hanshin in Bundang’s Imae-dong, where a first-floor 50-square-meter unit — typically the least desirable position in a Korean apartment block — fetched 1.475 billion won on July 27. The complex dates to October 1992 and holds 1,184 households across 12 buildings, making it a contemporary of the cheapest complexes in this month’s data. Age, in other words, is not what separates the top of this market from the bottom; location within the capital region is doing almost all of the work.

At the other end, Incheon supplied the month’s lowest registered prices. Beyond the 186 million won Yeonsu trade — in a 1,654-household complex completed in 1992 — a 48-square-meter unit at Nonhyeon Jugong 1 in Namdong district sold for 188 million won on July 20. Both complexes represent the region’s aging mass-housing stock from the early and late 1990s.

Suwon’s Mid-Market Is Moving in Both Directions at Once

Suwon, the largest city in Gyeonggi Province, produced the most trades in the July records, and they point in conflicting directions even within single complexes. At Yeongtong Byeokjeokgol Doosan Hanshin, a 59-square-meter unit on the 17th floor sold for 520 million won on July 18; nine days later a 13th-floor unit of the same type went for 470 million won, a 50 million won — roughly 10 percent — discount inside the same 1,842-household complex.

Floor position explains some of the dispersion elsewhere. At Suwon Hanil Town in Jangan district, an 84-square-meter unit on the third floor sold for 620 million won on July 25, while a first-floor unit of the same type registered at 529 million won three days later — a 91 million won gap for the ground-floor position. The complex’s smaller 59-square-meter type traded twice in the same window, at 499 million won and 480 million won.

Hwaseo-dong showed a notable inversion: a 49-square-meter unit at the 1997-built Hwaseo Jugong 4 complex sold for 690 million won on July 27, more than the 555 million and 590 million won paid the same month for larger 59-square-meter units at the nearby Hwaseo Station Blooming Purun Forest complex. Buyers there are paying more for less space in older buildings — a pattern typically associated with redevelopment potential, though the filings themselves record only the prices.

Songdo Clusters Tightly in the Mid-Range

Incheon’s Songdo international district, by contrast, traded in a narrow band. Three units of the 70-square-meter type at e-Pyeonhansesang Songdo sold within five days of each other at 548 million, 582 million and 570 million won — a spread of just over 6 percent from a third-floor unit to a 38th-floor one. A 74-square-meter unit at Verdium The First went for 638 million won on July 18, with a lower-floor unit at 625 million won on July 29.

Songdo’s larger stock reached higher: an 84-square-meter unit at The Sharp Central City, a 2,610-household complex completed in 2018, sold for 865 million won on July 28 — matching, to the won, the 865 million won paid for a 115-square-meter unit at the older Songdo Global Campus Prugio five days earlier. Within Songdo itself, buyers are paying the same price for a newer, smaller unit as for an older, substantially larger one.

A Market Sorted by Address, Not by Age

Taken together, the July registrations describe a secondary market in which building age has largely stopped functioning as a pricing variable. Complexes completed within five years of each other in the 1990s traded anywhere from 186 million to 1.475 billion won for comparable floor space, while intra-complex spreads of 5 to 15 percent within a single month suggest buyers and sellers are still negotiating hard over floor level and timing. For households priced out of Bundang and central Suwon, the data shows where the entry points remain — and how far below the region’s top tier they sit.