New records set for apartments in northern Seoul

Experts warn: units under 1 billion won set to vanish

A view of the Sanggye Jugong apartment complex in Sanggye-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul. [Herald DB]
A view of the Sanggye Jugong apartment complex in Sanggye-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul. [Herald DB]

With the supply of new apartments in Seoul remaining tight, prices for newly built units are climbing by the day. Even in Nowon-gu, demand for new apartments combined with expectations of further development have pushed pre-sale prices past the 2.1 billion won ($1.52 million) mark.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's actual transaction price disclosure system, a pre-sale right for a 120-square-meter unit at Seoul Won I'Park in Wolgye-dong, Nowon-gu — scheduled for move-in in July 2028 — changed hands on Aug. 9 for 2.19 billion won, covering a unit on the 30th floor. Less than a month after that transaction broke the 2.1 billion won threshold, a unit of the same size on the 12th floor sold for 2.13 billion won.

An 84-square-meter pre-sale unit in the same complex also set a new high on July 4, selling for 1.86 billion won on the 37th floor. Nearby real estate agents say the buyers behind these deals are largely high-income professionals.

"It's not that a particularly desirable building is driving up prices — the market price for this whole area has simply risen," an official at a nearby real estate agency said. "There are more and more sellers asking for even higher prices."

The official added that buyers are a diverse group, with many being high-earning professionals rather than just newlyweds.

Seoul Won I'Park is the centerpiece residential complex of the Kwangwoon University Station transit-oriented development project. The large-scale complex will rise from four below-ground floors to a maximum of 49 above-ground floors across eight buildings, comprising 3,032 units in total. Of those, 1,856 are apartments, with the remainder to be supplied as residences and public rental housing.

Prices at Seoul Won I'Park have been rising further as the mixed-use development around Kwangwoon University Station — long considered the most anticipated project in the northeastern part of the city — gets fully underway. The project involves developing a roughly 150,000-square-meter railway logistics site in Wolgye-dong, Nowon-gu, at a total project cost of 4.5 trillion won. Various companies and commercial and cultural infrastructure are expected to relocate to the area in the future.

Experts say that with the supply of new apartments in Seoul critically short, high-priced transactions are being driven by demand for new units layered on top of development expectations in the city's outer districts.

New apartments are in fact rising faster than the broader market in Seoul's outer areas, where home prices are already climbing quickly. An 84-square-meter unit at Forena Nowon, a relatively new complex in Sanggye-dong, Nowon-gu, sold on Aug. 8 for 1.38 billion won on the 17th floor — 85 million won above the previous record of 1.29 billion won set on April 22. Record highs continued elsewhere: an 85-square-meter unit at Nowon Lotte Castle Signature in Sanggye-dong traded at 1.29 billion won on the 24th floor on July 11, and an 84-square-meter unit at Wolgye Central I'Park in Wolgye-dong sold for 1.25 billion won on the 18th floor on July 30.

As new apartment prices lead the way higher, older complexes are following suit. "Nowon-gu used to be the last neighborhood in Seoul where home prices rose," said the head of a real estate agency in Junggye-dong, Nowon-gu. "But recently, both new and older complexes have been breaking their 2021 peak prices — the height of the last apartment price surge. A prime example is an 84-square-meter unit at Junggye Cheonggu 3rd in Junggye-dong, which sold for 1.43 billion won on July 11, surpassing the previous record of 1.42 billion won set in February 2021."


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