Seoul tenants pay millions more as 88% raise deposits when renewing leases

Nearly nine out of 10 Seoul apartment tenants who renewed their leases without invoking their legal renewal-demand right paid a higher deposit in July. The average additional burden exceeded 46 million won.

Data from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport showed that Seoul recorded 4,576 apartment lease-renewal contracts in July. Of those, 2,093, or 45.7%, did not use the renewal-demand right.

The average deposit for those renewals reached 559.04 million won, up 46.83 million won, or 9.1%, from the average 512.21 million won in the contracts signed two years earlier. The increase was considerably larger than for renewals that used the legal right, where the average deposit rose by 27.44 million won.

The lease-renewal right allows a tenant who requests an extension to limit the landlord’s rent increase to 5%. The report attributed the rise in lease prices to a decline in available listings after land-transaction permit zones were designated across Seoul. Demand for renewals also remained steady, particularly in areas known for their school districts, with some complexes recording increases of hundreds of millions of won.