Rent in Gangnam: What Small Homes Cost and Where to Get Advice

1/7

We analyzed 1,439 reported monthly rent contracts for small homes in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. You'll also find background on wolse and jeonse, plus tips on free rental advice. ━━━━━━━━━━ 💸 Typical rent and deposit in Gangnam-gu The basis is the reported lease contracts in the Seoul city open data: 1,439 new monthly rent contracts (월세) for homes up to 40 m² in Gangnam-gu (강남구). They were signed between July 31, 2026 and October 27, 2026. The data covers officetels, villas and houses with several units, but no apartments. The typical monthly rent (median) is ₩750,000 (≈ $560). The middle half of the contracts lies between ₩500,000 and ₩1,000,000. The typical deposit (median) is ₩10,000,000 (≈ $7,460). The middle half ranges from ₩10,000,000 (≈ $7,460) to ₩50,000,000 (≈ $37,300). Dollar values are rounded and based on 1 USD = ₩1,340.47. 👉 For you: Budget for the deposit as well as the monthly rent: depending on the contract, it can be much higher than the typical value. ━━━━━━━━━━ 🏠 26 m² and differences by home type The typical floor area (median) in these contracts is 26 m². By home type, it looks like this: Officetel (오피스텔): median rent ₩850,000 (≈ $634), median deposit ₩10,000,000 (≈ $7,460), based on 446 contracts. Villa, meaning a small multi-family house (연립다세대): ₩750,000 (≈ $560) rent and a ₩20,000,000 deposit (≈ $14,920), 466 contracts. House with several units (단독다가구): ₩700,000 (≈ $522) rent and a ₩10,000,000 deposit (≈ $7,460), 527 contracts. 👉 For you: The type of home makes a difference: the officetel had the highest median rent, the villa the highest median deposit. ━━━━━━━━━━ 📍 Cheaper and pricier areas in Gangnam-gu We only compared areas with at least 20 reported contracts. The cheapest is Ilwon-dong (일원동) with a median rent of ₩550,000 (≈ $410), based on 52 contracts. Next comes Gaepo-dong (개포동) with ₩650,000 (≈ $485) and 87 contracts. At the top end are Yeoksam-dong (역삼동) with ₩850,000 (≈ $634) and 526 contracts, and Samseong-dong (삼성동), also at ₩850,000 (≈ $634) with 71 contracts. So the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive area is ₩300,000 a month at the median. 👉 For you: If you're searching in Gangnam-gu, it's worth looking at several areas. ━━━━━━━━━━ ⚖️ Deposit vs. rent: wolse and jeonse With a deposit of up to ₩10,000,000, the median rent was ₩830,000 (≈ $619), based on 798 contracts. With a deposit above ₩10,000,000, it was ₩600,000 (≈ $448), based on 641 contracts. So in these contracts, the median rent was higher when the deposit was lower. Some background: Korea has two types of rental. With jeonse (전세), instead of monthly rent you place a very large, refundable deposit. With wolse (월세), you pay a deposit plus monthly rent. According to the Korea Herald, many foreigners find it hard to get a loan for a jeonse deposit and therefore choose monthly rent. In the Seoul Survey 2024, 52.5% of the foreigners surveyed lived in monthly rent homes, compared with 28% of all Seoulites. For context: in August 2026, the average monthly rent for multi-family housing in Seoul hit a record ₩675,000, and the average deposit was ₩61,170,000 (Korea Real Estate Board). That is a different data basis from our analysis of small homes in Gangnam-gu. 👉 For you: Think about which combination of deposit and monthly rent fits your budget. ━━━━━━━━━━ 🤝 Free advice and agents who speak foreign languages According to the Korea Herald, foreigners' most common problems are communicating with the landlord and getting the deposit back. The Seoul Global Center connects people with experts for these issues. The Seoul Foreign Residents Support Center in Yeongdeungpo (Daelim-dong) offers free rental advice against jeonse fraud: Mondays from 2 to 5 pm, with English-speaking agents. Contact: phone 2229-4900, email help@sfrc.seoul.kr, info at global.seoul.go.kr. This comes from a Korea Times article dated November 17, 2024, so please check the current hours on that website. 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. According to the Korea Herald, the center advises getting help early, ideally before you sign. 👉 For you: Get support before you sign a lease. You'll find the advice details at global.seoul.go.kr. ━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 Sources Stadt Seoul – Open Data: Mietverträge (서울시 부동산 전월세가 정보) https://data.seoul.go.kr/dataList/OA-21276/S/1/datasetView.do Korea Herald via Asia News Network – Rising rents narrow housing choices for Seoul's foreign residents (01.10.2026) https://asianews.network/?p=305016 Korea Times – Seoul to combat home lease fraud with multilingual counseling (17.11.2024) https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/amp/southkorea/society/20241117/seoul-to-combat-home-lease-fraud-with-multilingual-counseling ━━━━━━━━━━ 💬 How did you find your home in Korea, and what has your experience been with deposits and landlords? 📲 On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lebeninkorea_en/ 📸 Photos: Alan Lee, zero take, Rina Kemppainen, Brother Yoon, Looie Kang, Marek Piwnicki, Marissa Lewis (Unsplash); Korea Heritage Service (KOGL Type 1)