Seoul's price-to-income ratio (PIR) for housing stood at 30, up about 84% in 10 years. It is the third highest among G20 cities after Shanghai and Mumbai, and about 2.8 times that of New York in the US.
According to the global statistics platform Numbeo on the 4th, Seoul's PIR was 30 in mid-2026, nearly double the 16.3 of mid-2016. Numbeo calculates the price of a 90-square-meter apartment from average housing prices in city centers and outskirts, and derives the PIR by taking average net salary multiplied by 1.5 as household income. This differs in method from the PIR in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's housing survey, which surveys housing prices and annual income of actual owner-occupier households.
Looking at the year-by-year trend, Seoul's PIR kept rising: 17.9 in 2016, 20.7 in 2019 and 24 in 2020, then 28.9 in 2021, peaking at 32.3 in 2022. It dropped to 30.8 in 2023 and 24.9 in 2024 when home prices stalled, but rebounded to 26.8 in 2025, when the Lee Jae-myung government took office, and has climbed back to 30 this year.
The gap is clear when compared with cities abroad. The average PIR of major G20 cities was 13.7, only 45.7% of Seoul's, and Seoul is about 1.9 times the G7 city average of 16. Behind Seoul came Jakarta, Indonesia (24.9), and major cities in advanced countries such as Moscow, Russia (21.1), Milan, Italy (18.2), Paris, France (17), London, UK (16.7) and Tokyo, Japan (16) also fell short of Seoul.
Compared with New York, Seoul's rise stands out even more. Ten years ago, the PIRs of Seoul (16.3) and New York (16.4) were about the same, but while Seoul soared to 30 over the period, New York fell to 10.9, widening the gap to about 2.8 times.
Some point out that such indicators are at odds with President Lee Jae-myung's perception of the market. At a Cabinet meeting on the 3rd, President Lee said, "The number of apartments listed for sale in Seoul is rising rapidly and transaction volume is falling very rapidly," adding, "Actual transaction prices in major areas are also continuing to fall. They are falling at a startling pace."
Looking at the three Gangnam districts alone, the decline is confirmed, as the president's diagnosis suggests. As of October 26, Gangnam-gu fell 0.38% and Seocho-gu 0.35%, declining for a 12th straight week, and Songpa-gu also dropped 0.22% over the same period, weak for eight consecutive weeks. By contrast, the other 22 districts all rose. Seoul home prices as a whole rose 0.09% from the previous week as of the same date, extending a record-long run of 90 consecutive weeks of gains.