Working with Jin ·

From 117 Apartments to a Shortlist: A Seoul Jeonse Search Case

Quiet Property — Seoul residential advisory

This is not a list of recommended properties. It is an anonymized working dataset created during an actual residential search in Seoul, shared with the client's consent.

The client was looking for a 30–40 pyeong apartment within a jeonse budget of approximately KRW 1.0–1.2 billion, with reasonable access to a major hospital.

The initial search produced 117 potential candidates across Seoul and the Bundang/Pangyo area. The purpose of this exercise was never to find 117 homes — it was to gradually eliminate what did not fit, and identify the small number of properties worth investigating further.

Data reference: August 2026.

Status: Working research only. Availability, asking prices, property condition, and lease terms require separate, current verification. This article shows a representative sample, not the complete dataset.

The market context behind the search

Seoul's jeonse market shifted noticeably over the summer of 2026. Tightening tax policy around jeonse deposits has pushed landlords to withdraw units from the rental pool more quickly, while new supply remains constrained. In practice, this means listings move faster and negotiating room is narrower than it was even a few months earlier — a condition that shaped the search from the outset, not an afterthought applied to the results.

What actually constrained the search

Two variables did most of the work: budget and hospital proximity. Everything else — building age, unit size, neighborhood character — was negotiable within limits. Hospital access in particular is easy to underweight on paper and difficult to compromise on in practice, so it was treated as a hard filter rather than a preference from the first pass.

Two areas stood out as being underweighted relative to what they offered. The Hannam/Yongsan corridor — including adjacent neighborhoods within its daily living radius, such as Sindang and Oksu — sits within reach of Suncheonhyang Hospital and gives fast access to both the northern and southern halves of the city. The Godeok/Amsa area near Gangdong Kyung Hee University Hospital, in Seoul's southeast, offered newer construction, completed urban redevelopment, and a noticeably higher share of green space than most comparably priced options closer to the center.

How 117 became a working shortlist

The screening was not a single filter but a sequence of them, applied in this order:

1Source from real transactions. Every candidate was pulled from actual contracted transactions and current asking prices from July–August 2026, not listing-site estimates.

2Group by hospital catchment. Candidates were clustered around the major hospitals that mattered for this search, rather than by administrative district — the geography that matters to a resident rarely follows ward boundaries.

3Tier by priority. Within each group, units were split into those worth checking first, those worth checking in sequence, and those kept only as reference — typically older stock where recommending a move-in would have required renovation the client hadn't asked for.

4Flag what needs separate verification. Older buildings were marked for interior-condition checks; a distinct group of units was set aside as viable only if fully renovated, and kept apart from the main shortlist rather than blended into it.

5Hold a comparison set apart. Bundang/Pangyo candidates were tracked in parallel as a geographic alternative, without being merged into Seoul's priority ranking, since the two markets don't compare cleanly on a single scale.

A representative sample

14 of the 117 candidates, spanning each tier of the screening above. Prices are jeonse deposits in KRW 100 million (億).

Complex	Area	Built	Size	Jeonse	Hospital	Tier
Songpa Lake Park Hoban Summit 2	Geoyeo-dong	2022	41py	10.0	Samsung Medical Center	40py · A group
Gaepo Raemian Forest	Gaepo-dong	2020	41py	11.2	Samsung Medical Center	40py · A group
Dogok Hanla Vivaldi	Dogok-dong	2016	49py	11.0	Samsung Medical Center	40py · A group
Raemian Sinbanpo Rio Cent	Jamwon-dong	2019	34py	11.3	Seoul St. Mary's	30py · priority
Bangbae Seoripul Grand Bleu	Bangbae-dong	2019	32py	11.4	Seoul St. Mary's	30py · priority
Jamsil Olympic Park IPARK	Pungnap-dong	2019	31py	10.5	Asan Medical Center	30py · priority
Parc Rio	Sincheon-dong	2008	33py	11.5	Asan Medical Center	30py · priority
Namsan Town Apartment	Sindang-dong	2002	42py	10.0	Suncheonhyang	newly added
Raemian Oksu Riverzen	Oksu-dong	2012	33py	11.5 (asking)	Suncheonhyang	newly added
Godeok Grasium	Godeok-dong	2019	34py	11.5	Gangdong Kyung Hee Univ.	newly added
Gangdong Lotte Castle First	Amsa-dong	2008	44py	11.0	Gangdong Kyung Hee Univ.	newly added
Gaepo Kyungnam 1cha	Gaepo-dong	—	31py	11.7	Samsung Medical Center	renovation-dependent
Pangyowon Hills State	Pangyo-dong	2009	33py	9.3	Bundang Seoul Nat'l Univ.	Bundang/Pangyo
Baekhyun-maeul 9-danji	Baekhyun-dong	2009	35py	12.0	Bundang Seoul Nat'l Univ.	Bundang/Pangyo

What this shortlist doesn't tell you

None of these 14 — or the 117 behind them — are confirmed as currently available. A jeonse candidate list is a starting point, not a result. The next steps are the ones that don't compress into a table: confirming which units are actually on the market today, walking the interior condition against what the listing claims, checking realistic move-in timing, and negotiating terms in a market that is currently moving in the landlord's favor. That part of the work is where a search like this one is actually decided.

This case is shared as a record of process, not a promotion of outcome. If you're navigating a similar search — a specific budget, a non-negotiable location constraint, limited time in Seoul to view properties in person — feel free to reach out and describe what you're working with.

Quiet Property · Working with Jin