[Edaily Reporter Lee Seung Hyun ] It has been revealed that pre-sale prices for apartments subject to the pre-sale price cap system are also on the rise. The primary cause is an increase in construction costs driven by rising prices of various raw materials. There have been a growing number of cases where pre-sale prices have risen for recently supplied apartments.
According to industry sources on the 20th, an analysis of apartment complexes subject to the price cap system that were supplied last year and this year in four major public housing sites in the Seoul metropolitan area—including the Gimpo Pungmu Station commercial district, Incheon Geomdan New Town, Pyeongtaek Godeok International New Town, and Goyang Changneung—revealed that the highest sales price for units with a usable area of 84 square meters supplied this year was higher than last year’s in all four locations surveyed.
The sales price for an 84-square-meter unit in the Goyang Changneung public housing complex rose by more than 90 million won in about a year and a half. While the highest price for Block S5, supplied in January of last year, was 772.89 million won, the highest price for a unit of the same size in Block S4, supplied in July of this year, reached 867.19 million won—an increase of 94.3 million won.

The trend in the Gimpo Pungmu Station area is similar. Block B4’s “Ho-ban Summit Pungmu III,” released in July of this year, sold units with a usable area of 84 square meters for up to 762.5 million won. In Block B5, “Gimpo Pungmu Station Area Hoban Summit,” which was released last October, the highest pre-sale price for an 84-square-meter unit was 701.5 million won. This represents an increase of 61 million won in just about nine months.
In the Pyeongtaek Godeok International New Town, the highest pre-sale price for an 84-square-meter unit at “Pyeongtaek Godeok Umi Rin Prestige,” which went on sale in June of this year, was 57.5 million won higher than that of a complex launched in July of last year. Similarly, in the Incheon Geomdan New Town, the highest pre-sale price for an 84-square-meter unit at “The Sharp Geomdan Lake Park,” which went on sale in June of this year, was 36.3 million won higher than that of a complex launched in July of last year.
The reason prices continue to rise despite the price cap system is that construction costs are increasing. According to the Korea Construction Industry Research Institute, the Construction Cost Index (2020=100) for August of this year stood at 138.74, a 5.98% increase from the same month last year. This marks the 13th consecutive month of increases since the index turned upward in August of last year.
The government is also factoring these rising construction costs into the calculation of pre-sale prices. Effective September 15, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport raised the standard construction cost applied to homes subject to the pre-sale price cap system from 2,237,000 won per square meter—the rate set in the previous official notice—to 2,328,000 won per square meter, a 4.07% increase.
The market expects it will be difficult for pre-sale prices to decline in the future. The October Pre-Sale Price Outlook Index, based on a survey of housing developers conducted by the Korea Housing Industry Research Institute, stood at 114.3, up 5.5 points from the previous month.
With the upward trend in pre-sale prices expected to accelerate, new housing complexes set to hit the market soon are drawing attention. This is because actual homebuyers are trying to move up the timeline for purchasing their own homes.
Namgwang Construction and LH plan to launch sales this month for “Bucheon Daejang House Story Decent” in Block A-2 of the Bucheon Daejang Public Housing District in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province. This is a public housing project with private sector participation comprising a total of 548 units, with exclusive areas of 59, 74, and 84 square meters.
The complex is located within walking distance of Daejang Station (planned) on the Daejang-Hongdae Line. Expansions to the regional transportation network, including the GTX-D (planned) and S-BRT (planned), are also underway. Sites for a kindergarten and elementary, middle, and high schools (planned) are all located within walking distance. The nearby Bucheon Daejang Urban High-Tech Industrial Complex is set to house research and development and office facilities for major companies such as SK Green Techno Campus (planned), Korean Air, and DN Solutions.
An industry official stated, “The housing price cap system is a measure designed to keep prices at a certain level relative to surrounding market rates; it is not a system that prevents the rise in construction costs or raw material prices itself.” The official added, “As there have been a series of cases recently where sales prices for subsequent developments on public land have been higher than those of previous ones, prospective homebuyers planning to purchase a home should comprehensively evaluate the price, location, and quality of currently available developments rather than simply waiting indefinitely.”