The divide between Seoul's housing market and that of the provinces is widening. Home prices and presale prices have climbed steeply in Seoul, where demand is concentrated, while unsold apartments and vacant homes accumulate outside the capital region. Analysts say housing policy should be broken down to the level of individual cities, counties and districts to reflect local demand and existing housing stock.
The gap in apartment sale prices between Seoul and non-capital provinces has widened sharply since 2006, according to a report titled "The Need for Differentiated Policy Responses Reflecting Regional Housing Market Characteristics," released on the 2nd by the National Assembly Futures Institute. In 2006, apartments in Seoul averaged 3.59 million won per square meter on an annual basis, about 3.5 times the 1.03 million won in province-level areas outside the capital region. By 2025, Seoul had reached 13.98 million won against 2.81 million won in those provinces, widening the gap to roughly five times. Over the same period, prices rose about 289% in Seoul, far outpacing the 173% increase in non-capital provinces.
Differences within regions were also pronounced. In Gyeonggi Province, the median apartment price per square meter in 2025 ranged from 25.24 million won in Gwacheon to 2.18 million won in Yeoncheon County, a gap of more than tenfold. The institute said that "beyond the broad distinction between the capital region and the rest of the country, price gaps between metropolitan and rural areas are clear even within the same city or province."
The divide also showed up in the private-sector presale market. Through May 2026, private apartment presale prices averaged 17.07 million won per square meter in Seoul, about four times the 4.29 million won in province-level areas outside the capital region. Seoul presale prices jumped about 44%, from 13.35 million won per square meter in January 2025 to 19.22 million won in May 2026.
New supply, by contrast, fell across the country, including in Seoul. Nationwide, new private apartment presales dropped 67.8%, from 360,569 units in 2015 to 116,213 units in 2025. In Seoul, the figure fell 65.8%, from 11,420 units in 2014 to 3,907 units in 2025.
Gyeonggi Province and Incheon saw a relatively smaller decline amid the nationwide drop in supply. Their combined share of new presales rose to 53.2% in 2025 from 28.8% in 2014. The share held by the five largest metropolitan cities and Sejong fell to 16.4% from 28.7% over the same period. The shift is attributed to new presale supply concentrating in Gyeonggi Province and Incheon.
Unsold units have been piling up mainly outside the capital region. Nationwide, unsold homes increased to 66,510 units in 2025 from 17,710 units in 2021. Measured against completions over the past three years, the unsold rate stood at just 0.6% in Seoul, compared with 3.2% in Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, 8.0% in the five largest metropolitan cities and Sejong, and 8.3% in province-level areas outside the capital region.
Compared with 2021, the 2025 unsold rate was 5.7 times higher in the five largest metropolitan cities and Sejong, and 3.1 times higher in non-capital provinces. That suggests provincial housing markets may be moving beyond a temporary glut into a phase in which existing stock accumulates over an extended period.
The nature of the unsold inventory also differed. In Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, units not yet completed accounted for 76.1% of all unsold homes. That points to a mismatch between housing still in the supply pipeline and actual demand. In the five largest metropolitan cities and Sejong, pre-completion units made up 58.5% of unsold homes.
In province-level areas outside the capital region, by contrast, completed but unsold homes accounted for 52.1% of the total. A larger share of housing there has already been built and remains unsold as inventory, a structural problem that cannot be resolved by adjusting new supply alone.
The vacant-home problem was more severe outside the capital. Seoul's vacancy rate edged up to 3.2% in 2024 from 2.8% in 2015, while the rate in province-level areas outside the capital region rose to 12.2% from 10.5%. The gap between Seoul and those provinces widened to 9.0 percentage points from 7.7 percentage points.
The institute recommended that policy in the capital region, including Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, focus on expanding new supply to match demand. For areas outside the capital region, it said the priority should be managing and restructuring existing stock, including unsold units, vacant homes and aging housing, rather than adding new supply.
Kim Soo-min, the researcher who wrote the report, said the design of housing policy and the allocation of funding should be broken down to the level of cities, counties and districts. "An integrated monitoring and early warning system should be built to track unsold units, aging housing and vacant homes together," Kim said.
