Jongno-gu, Seoul: What small monthly-rent (Wolse) homes cost

1/7

We analyzed 658 new monthly-rent contracts for small homes in Jongno-gu (종로구) from the Seoul city open data. Here are the numbers on rent, deposit, home types and neighborhoods, plus where to get help before you sign. ━━━━━━━━━━ 💸 ₩600,000 rent + ₩10 million deposit The data: 658 new monthly-rent contracts (월세) for homes up to 40 m² in Jongno-gu, signed between Aug 4, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026. It covers officetels, villas and houses with multiple units, not apartments. The data comes from the rental contracts reported to the city of Seoul (open data). The typical monthly rent (median) is ₩600,000 (≈ $449). The middle half of the contracts falls between ₩480,000 (≈ $360) and ₩800,000 (≈ $599) a month. The typical deposit (median) is ₩10 million (≈ $7,489). The middle half of the contracts ranges from ₩5 million (≈ $3,745) to ₩20 million (≈ $14,978). Dollar values are converted at $1 = ₩1,335.27 and rounded. 👉 For you: For a small home in Jongno-gu, the typical figures are ₩600,000 rent and a ₩10 million deposit. The middle half of contracts ranges from ₩480,000 to ₩800,000 for rent and from ₩5 million to ₩20 million for the deposit. ━━━━━━━━━━ 🏠 Typically 23 m²: officetel, villa or house The typical living space (median) in the data is 23 m². Apartments are not included in this analysis. The officetel (오피스텔) is the most expensive type, with a median rent of ₩740,000 (≈ $554). The median deposit is ₩10 million (≈ $7,489), based on 234 contracts. The villa (small multi-family building, 연립다세대) has a median rent of ₩550,000 (≈ $412) with a ₩10 million deposit (104 contracts). The house with multiple units (단독다가구) also comes to ₩550,000 rent and a ₩10 million deposit, and with 320 contracts it has the most cases. 👉 For you: At the median, an officetel in Jongno-gu costs ₩190,000 (≈ $142) more per month than a villa or a house with multiple units. The median deposit is the same for all three types. ━━━━━━━━━━ 📍 From ₩480,000 to ₩980,000 a month There are big differences between neighborhoods. We only show neighborhoods with at least 20 contracts, each with its median rent. Cheapest: Changsin-dong (창신동) at ₩480,000 (≈ $360) with 48 contracts, and Yeonji-dong (연지동) at ₩490,000 (≈ $367) with 31 contracts. Most expensive: Naesu-dong (내수동) at ₩980,000 (≈ $734) and Sungin-dong (숭인동) at ₩700,000 (≈ $524). Naesu-dong has only 21 contracts, while Sungin-dong has 191. So the Naesu-dong figure rests on a smaller base. 👉 For you: If you are searching in Jongno-gu, it pays to look at individual neighborhoods: the median differs by ₩500,000 (≈ $374) a month between Changsin-dong and Naesu-dong. ━━━━━━━━━━ 🔑 More deposit = less rent? Not here Korea has two types of rental: Jeonse (전세), where you put down a very large, refundable deposit instead of paying monthly rent, and monthly rent (월세, Wolse) with a deposit plus rent. We checked whether a higher deposit goes along with lower rent. With a deposit of up to ₩10 million (≈ $7,489), the median rent was ₩600,000 (≈ $449), based on 482 contracts. With a deposit of more than ₩10 million, it was also ₩600,000 (≈ $449), based on 176 contracts. According to the Korea Herald, many foreigners find it hard to get a loan for the Jeonse deposit and therefore choose monthly rent. In the Seoul Survey 2024, 52.5% of the foreigners surveyed lived on monthly rent, compared with 28% of all Seoul residents. For comparison, across all of Seoul: in August 2026, the average monthly rent for multi-family housing hit a record ₩675,000 (≈ $506), and the average deposit was ₩61.17 million (≈ $45,811) (Korea Real Estate Board). This is an average for all of Seoul and cannot be compared directly with our median values for small homes in Jongno-gu. 👉 For you: With Wolse, count the deposit and the rent together. In the Jongno data, the median rent is the same for deposits up to ₩10 million and above. ━━━━━━━━━━ 🤝 Get help before you sign According to the Korea Herald, the most common problems for foreigners are communicating with the landlord and getting the deposit back. The Seoul Global Center connects people with experts for this. According to the Korea Herald, the center advises getting help early, ideally before you sign. According to the Korea Times, the Seoul Foreign Residents Support Center in Yeongdeungpo (Daelim-dong) offers free rental counseling against Jeonse fraud: Mondays, 2–5 pm, with English-speaking agents. Contact: phone 2229-4900, email help@sfrc.seoul.kr, info at global.seoul.go.kr. The hours come from a report dated Nov 17, 2024, so check them on the website first. Seoul also has "Global Real Estate Agencies": 293 agents who speak foreign languages, 219 of them English. Most are in Yongsan (54), Gangnam (32) and Seocho (31). The list is on the city's website. 👉 For you: Get advice or find an agent who speaks foreign languages before you sign. You can check the counseling hours through the email address, phone number or global.seoul.go.kr listed above. ━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 Sources Stadt Seoul – Open Data: Mietverträge https://data.seoul.go.kr/dataList/OA-21276/S/1/datasetView.do Hankyoreh21 – Jeonse-Betrug und Ausländer (29.10.2026) https://h21.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/60109.html HUG – 전세보증금반환보증 https://www.khug.or.kr/hug/web/ig/dr/igdr000001.jsp Seoul Foreign Resident Center – Beratung https://global.seoul.go.kr/hmpg/ainf/ctrs/frct/srch/dopr/doprListPage.do?cntr_no=04E34E2046394333BCC451C20A4850D9 ━━━━━━━━━━ 💬 How much do you pay (or did you pay) for your home in Seoul, and how did you find it? 📲 On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lebeninkorea_en/ 📸 Photos: NK Lee, Marek Piwnicki, Marissa Lewis (Unsplash)