Leaving Seoul Doesn't Make It Cheaper: The Disappearing Step-Down Home
More young people are leaving Seoul for the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, and the usual reason is cost. My view is simple: leaving Seoul does not make housing much cheaper. What sets the price is how fast and how easily you can get to the big job centers, such as Gangnam, Yeouido and Gwanghwamun. The city line matters much less than that.
And the other way to save money, staying in Seoul but moving one step down to a cheaper place, is getting harder too. This year the cheaper homes in Seoul are rising faster than the expensive ones.
Who Is Leaving
Korean media reported new figures on the net outflow of people from Seoul to Gyeonggi. The net outflow (in Korean) has grown by about half in a little over a year.
| Period | Net outflow, Seoul to Gyeonggi | Monthly average | Net outflow as a share of all Seoul-to-Gyeonggi movers |
|---|---|---|---|
| H1 2025 | 17,907 | 2,985 | 12.6% |
| H2 2025 | 23,474 | 3,912 | 17.2% |
| Jan–Aug 2026 | 35,809 | 4,476 | 17.7% |
Most of the people making this move are young. From January to August this year, 43,332 people in their 20s and 55,392 in their 30s moved from Seoul to Gyeonggi. Together that is 98,724 people, or 54.9% of everyone who made the move.
Look at where they go. Over the past five years, the most common routes were Eunpyeong to Goyang, Songpa to Hanam, Gangdong to Hanam, Songpa to Seongnam, and Gangseo to Gimpo. In each case the move is from a Seoul district to the city right next to it. People are not going far. They are stepping just over the line and keeping the same commute as much as they can.
The City Line Was Never the Price Line
I feel this myself. I commute to one of these job centers, so when I look for a place, and when people around me look for one, the pattern is the same: the easier the commute, the higher the price. Parts of Gyeonggi with an easy commute to the main job centers cost about as much as Seoul.
When I looked at officetels, the small studio-style units many single renters here live in, the ones within commuting range of Seoul were not much different in price from those in Seoul. The things that moved the price more were the building’s age, its condition, and the distance to the subway station. And in parts of Gyeonggi full of companies, like Pangyo, the prices I saw were higher than in most of Seoul.
The numbers for larger apartments point the same way. Local reports say 21 areas in the Seoul region had an 84-square-meter apartment sell for more than ₩2 billion this year, five more than last year. The new ones include Dongtan in Hwaseong, Yeongtong in Suwon and Sujeong in Seongnam, all in Gyeonggi, along with Seongbuk and Dongdaemun in Seoul. One 84-square-meter unit at Dongtan Station Lotte Castle sold for ₩2.225 billion in June, up ₩378 million, or 20.5%, from the April high of ₩1.847 billion.
So what sets the price is mainly not a Seoul address. It is time. A cheaper home outside Seoul does exist, but it is usually the one with the longer, harder commute. The real trade is time against money, and moving across the city line does not change that.
The Step Down Inside Seoul Is Shrinking
The other option is to stay in Seoul and rent or buy something one level cheaper. This year that option is getting more expensive, because the cheaper homes are rising faster. According to local reports, cheaper jeonse leases in Seoul rose faster (in Korean) than expensive ones between January and September. (Jeonse is a lease paid with a large deposit; more on it below.) Last year it was the other way around.
| Seoul apartment jeonse, by price group | Jan 2026 average | Sep 2026 average | Change, Jan–Sep 2026 | Change, 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bottom 20% | ₩287.25M | ₩314.49M | +9.5% | +2.3% |
| 20–40% | ₩454.29M | ₩501.08M | +10.3% | +2.2% |
| 40–60% | ₩582.45M | ₩639.93M | +9.9% | +2.9% |
| 60–80% | Not reported | Not reported | Not reported | +3.4% |
| Top 20% | ₩1,279.95M | ₩1,350.57M | +5.5% | +4.5% |
For readers outside Korea: jeonse is a lease where the tenant puts down a large deposit instead of paying monthly rent. For many young people it has been the usual first step before buying.
Sale prices show the same catch-up. In September, the average price of the cheapest 20% of Seoul apartments was ₩552.92 million, up 2.13% in one month, while the top 20% rose 0.42%. The gap between the two has narrowed for eight months in a row. (in Korean) In the same report, Nowon rose the most of any Seoul district, at 2.32%, followed by Jungnang, Dobong, Seongbuk and Gangbuk, the parts of the city people used to name when they meant “cheaper.”
Buyers are crowding into the lower end of the market. Of Seoul apartment sales reported through September 28, 55.9% were at ₩1 billion or less (in Korean). Total sales fell 20.9% from a year earlier, but sales at ₩1 billion or less fell only 6.2%, and one in five of those was in Nowon.
When the bottom rises faster than the top, the cheap steps move up. Someone without a home used to have a few cheaper steps to choose from. Now the steps are closer together, and the lowest one is higher.
What People Weigh
From what I see, when people do move out of Seoul, they often weigh the distance to work, and, if they have children, the school district. Both of these push people toward the same places everyone else wants, which is why those places are not cheap.
There is also something that is not about money. People who were born and raised in Seoul seem to resist the idea of leaving Seoul at all. I can’t put a number on that. But it means some people will pay more, or live in less space, to keep a Seoul address, even when a place just over the line would get them to work just as fast.
So the young people in the outflow numbers are not, in most cases, finding a cheap home. They are finding a home they can still commute from, and paying close to Seoul prices for it. The question I keep asking is where the next cheaper step is, if the cities just over the Seoul line and the cheapest parts of Seoul are both rising at once. I don’t see it yet.