Buy vs Jeonse Calculator

Compare buying a Korean apartment against living on jeonse: net worth over 20 years, the month buying overtakes, jeonse's hidden monthly rent, and what the landlord will ask at each 2-year renewal.

Defaults: 2026-09 prices and rates

The two prices and how long you stay

Six fields decide the answer. Everything below them is a detail you can leave alone.

Home price

10k KRW

The apartment you would buy. Seoul's median apartment was ₩1.29bn in August 2026.

Jeonse deposit

10k KRW

The refundable lump sum, with no monthly rent. Seoul apartments sat at ~50 % of the sale price in 2026.

Mortgage amount

10k KRW

Whatever the price is above this, you pay in cash. Capped at the price.

Mortgage rate

Nominal annual rate, repaid in equal instalments of principal and interest.

Time horizon

Even years only: a jeonse contract renews every two years, and a mid-cycle horizon would misreport the renewal table.

Investment return

What the cash the other path would have consumed earns instead. Move this one first: it changes the answer more than the mortgage rate does.

What you expect — homes 3%, jeonse 3% a year

Both start neutral and equal, which keeps the 전세가율 constant in the long run.

Home appreciation

Per year. Negative is allowed — the underwater case is the point.

Jeonse growth

Per year, applied at every renewal. Negative is 역전세: the landlord refunds the difference.

Buying costs and tax — holding 0.15%, CGT 26.4%

Loan term

Holding tax, effective

Of the live market value, per year — 재산세 plus its local education and urban-area surtaxes. Raise it above ₩1.2bn of 공시가격, where 종합부동산세 starts.

Upkeep and depreciation

Of the home's value, per year. Owner-only repairs: 관리비 and 장기수선충당금 are the occupier's in both paths, so they cancel.

Registration and legal

10k KRW

국민주택채권 discount, stamp duty and the 법무사 fee. Acquisition tax and the agent's commission are derived, not typed.

Effective CGT rate

Applied to the taxable slice only: 24 % base rate × 1.1 for 지방소득세. Short holds are surcharged automatically (77 % under a year, 66 % from one to two).

Tax on investment gains

이자·배당소득세 14 % plus 지방소득세 1.4 %. Charged to whichever side has gains.

Floor area over 85 m²

Above the 국민주택 size, acquisition tax carries a further 0.2 % 농어촌특별세.

One-home CGT relief

Assumes 1세대 1주택 with 2 years held. Switched off, the whole gain is taxed at the rate below.

Jeonse costs — loan at 4.2%, guarantee 0.12%

Jeonse loan

10k KRW

Interest-only; the principal comes out of the returned deposit. Capped at the deposit.

Jeonse loan rate

Deposit-return guarantee

HUG / HF / SGI cover the return of the deposit. The fee is the real price of that safety.

Use the statutory renewal right

2+2: the first renewal is capped at a 5 % increase and needs no agent, so no brokerage fee that cycle. Later cycles follow the market.

Guarantee fee rate

Per year on the deposit. HUG's apartment band runs 0.097–0.211 %.

Jeonse is ahead after 10 years

₩21,070,000

Buy ₩1,251,490,000 against jeonse ₩1,272,560,000 — net worth built from the same starting cash

When buying overtakes

12 years 7 months

Measured month by month. The year-end table below, which only looks once a year, first shows buying ahead in year 13.

Monthly cash gap, month one

₩2,875,712

Owning ₩3,637,525 against jeonse ₩761,813

Owning costs ₩2,875,712 more a month at the start — that gap is what the tenant invests.

Jeonse's hidden monthly rent

₩2,218,627

₩1,456,814 of forgone return on the locked deposit, ₩700,000 of loan interest, ₩61,813 of guarantee fee.

A jeonse lease is not free rent; this is what it costs a month.

Home equity after 10 years

₩1,251,490,000

₩1,733,650,000 of value, less ₩12,140,000 of agent commission, ₩5,500,000 of capital-gains tax and ₩464,520,000 still owed.

Sale price is above the ₩1.2bn one-home exemption, so 30.78% of the gain is taxable.

What the owner pays in month one

₩3,637,525 a month

81% 15%

Principal & interest ₩2,938,775 · 81%
Holding tax ₩161,250 · 4%
Upkeep ₩537,500 · 15%

Net worth, buying against jeonse

If you buy
If you stay on jeonse

One point per year, at the end of the year, both sides valued as if you settled that day. Where the lines cross is where buying overtakes.

Jeonse-to-price ratio 50%: the deposit is that share of the purchase price. Under 70 % is the comfortable band.

Over 10 years the locked deposit forgoes ₩205,198,058 of investment return — the single biggest cost of a jeonse lease, and the one nobody bills you for.

The model always runs the full 20 years; 10 years is the point it settles and reports.

Where the money went over 10 years

Item	If you buy	If you take jeonse
Upfront cash	₩762,310,000	₩447,580,000
Housing bills over 10 years	₩450,090,000	₩92,310,000
Total cash out	₩1,212,400,000	₩539,890,000
Invested principal	₩0	₩693,780,000
Tax on investment gains	-₩0	-₩29,890,000
Deposit returned	₩0	₩808,670,000
Jeonse loan repaid	₩0	-₩200,000,000
Sale price	₩1,733,650,000	₩0
Selling costs and CGT	-₩17,640,000	₩0
Mortgage still owed	-₩464,520,000	₩0
Net worth after 10 years	₩1,251,490,000	₩1,272,560,000

Both columns add to the last row. Whichever side pays less that month invests the difference at 4%.

What the landlord asks at each renewal

Cycle	Years	Deposit needed	Change	Funded from	Jeonse loan balance	Monthly cost
Cycle 1	1–2	₩645,000,000	First contract	No top-up needed	₩200,000,000	₩761,813
Cycle 2	3–4	₩677,250,000	₩32,250,000 (Renewal right, 5 % cap)	Savings ₩32,250,000	₩200,000,000	₩764,903
Cycle 3	5–6	₩718,494,525	₩41,244,525 (Market)	Savings ₩44,118,503	₩200,000,000	₩768,856
Cycle 4	7–8	₩762,250,842	₩43,756,317 (Market)	Savings ₩46,805,320	₩200,000,000	₩773,049
Cycle 5	9–10	₩808,671,918	₩46,421,076 (Market)	Savings ₩49,655,764	₩200,000,000	₩777,498
Cycle 6	11–12	₩857,920,038	₩49,248,120 (Market)	Savings ₩52,679,800	₩200,000,000	₩782,217
Cycle 7	13–14	₩910,167,368	₩52,247,330 (Market)	Savings ₩55,888,000	₩200,000,000	₩787,224
Cycle 8	15–16	₩965,596,561	₩55,429,193 (Market)	Savings ₩59,291,579	₩200,000,000	₩792,536
Cycle 9	17–18	₩1,024,401,391	₩58,804,831 (Market)	Savings ₩62,902,436	₩200,000,000	₩798,172
Cycle 10	19–20	₩1,086,787,436	₩62,386,045 (Market)	Savings ₩66,733,194	₩200,000,000	₩804,150

Every two years the deposit is re-set. The first renewal is capped at 5 % while the statutory right is used; after that it follows your jeonse growth rate. A rise is funded from the portfolio first and then by extra loan.

Year by year, all 20 years

Year	If you buy	If you take jeonse	Buy − jeonse	Home equity
1	₩750,080,000	₩805,540,000	-₩55,460,000	₩750,090,000
2	₩799,490,000	₩853,220,000	-₩53,730,000	₩799,490,000
3	₩849,440,000	₩901,730,000	-₩52,290,000	₩849,440,000
4	₩900,800,000	₩952,250,000	-₩51,450,000	₩900,810,000
5	₩953,920,000	₩1,000,430,000	-₩46,510,000	₩953,920,000
6	₩1,007,520,000	₩1,053,600,000	-₩46,080,000	₩1,007,530,000
7	₩1,064,740,000	₩1,104,300,000	-₩39,560,000	₩1,064,740,000
8	₩1,124,340,000	₩1,160,280,000	-₩35,940,000	₩1,124,330,000
9	₩1,186,520,000	₩1,213,620,000	-₩27,100,000	₩1,186,520,000
10	₩1,251,490,000	₩1,272,560,000	-₩21,070,000	₩1,251,490,000
11	₩1,316,500,000	₩1,328,700,000	-₩12,200,000	₩1,316,500,000
12	₩1,383,610,000	₩1,390,770,000	-₩7,160,000	₩1,383,620,000
13	₩1,452,900,000	₩1,449,860,000	₩3,040,000	₩1,452,900,000
14	₩1,524,440,000	₩1,515,230,000	₩9,210,000	₩1,524,440,000
15	₩1,598,310,000	₩1,577,430,000	₩20,880,000	₩1,598,310,000
16	₩1,674,610,000	₩1,646,290,000	₩28,320,000	₩1,674,610,000
17	₩1,753,410,000	₩1,711,760,000	₩41,650,000	₩1,753,400,000
18	₩1,834,820,000	₩1,784,300,000	₩50,520,000	₩1,834,820,000
19	₩1,918,920,000	₩1,853,240,000	₩65,680,000	₩1,918,910,000
20	₩2,005,800,000	₩1,929,650,000	₩76,150,000	₩2,005,800,000

Net worth at the end of each year. A positive figure under buy − jeonse means buying is ahead. Your own horizon, year 10, is marked.

What moves the answer

Home appreciation — 1%: Not within 20 years. 5%: 2 years 2 months.
Jeonse growth — 1%: Not within 20 years. 5%: 10 years 3 months.
Investment return — 2%: 6 years 1 months. 6%: Not within 20 years.
Mortgage rate — 3.5%: 6 years 9 months. 5.5%: Not within 20 years.
Jeonse deposit — ₩580,500,000: Not within 20 years. ₩709,500,000: 9 years.

One input at a time, everything else exactly as you left it. Each line prints when buying overtakes.

Why the capital-gains tax is what it is

For a 1세대 1주택 seller who has held two years, the gain is exempt up to a sale price of ₩1.2bn. Above it only the excess share is taxed: at a ₩1,733,650,000 sale price that is 30.78% of the gain, which is why the tax can fall as the years pass and rise again once the price outruns the ceiling.

From the third year the 장기보유특별공제 removes 8 % of the taxable gain per year — 4 % for holding and 4 % for living there — up to 80 % at ten years. Two years of holding is the exemption's own condition, and the deduction starts a year later.

Sell inside two years and none of that applies: the rate is 77 % under one year and 66 % between one and two, local income tax included. Those are the two years this page paints in full, because every competitor truncates before them.

The model assumes one home, owner-occupied, with no 다주택 중과 and no 종합부동산세 of its own — that one is folded into the holding-tax rate you can raise. The residual marginal rate is the single field you control.

Lump sums are rounded to 만원 wherever they are shown and monthly amounts to the won, so every column adds up as printed. The month-by-month model itself runs unrounded, and the overtaking point is reported in whole months.

See the full mortgage payment and amortization schedule

This calculator is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice.

Updated: September 6, 2026

Buy vs jeonse calculator. When owning a Korean apartment beats a deposit-only lease.

A buy-vs-jeonse calculator compares the net worth of buying a Korean apartment against living on a jeonse deposit, month by month, over up to 20 years. It reports the month buying overtakes, and turns the deposit sitting with your landlord into a monthly rent figure you can hold against a mortgage payment.

What a Jeonse Lease Costs, and What This Page Measures

A jeonse lease charges no monthly rent. The tenant hands the landlord a refundable lump sum worth 50 % to 80 % of the home, the landlord keeps whatever that money earns over a two-year contract, and the tenant gets the whole sum back at the end. The tenant pays for it in the income that lump sum never produces while it sits in someone else's account, which is why a lease with a rent of zero still belongs in a comparison against a mortgage.

The crossing point this page reports is the month a buyer's net worth first reaches a jeonse tenant's. Both sides begin with the same cash. Whichever one spends less on housing in a given month puts the difference into an investment account earning the rate you set, and the deposit stays on the tenant's balance sheet at face value because it comes back at the end, leaving the growth it never had as the only thing the tenant forfeits.

On the state the page loads with — a ₩1,290,000,000 apartment, a ₩645,000,000 jeonse deposit, a ₩580,000,000 mortgage at 4.5 % over 30 years, a ₩200,000,000 jeonse loan at 4.2 %, 4 % on invested cash and 3 % a year on both home prices and jeonse deposits — the ten-year figures are ₩1,251,490,000 for the buyer and ₩1,272,560,000 for the tenant. Jeonse ends ahead by ₩21,070,000, a margin of 1.7 %. The card headed When buying overtakes reads 12 years 7 months — month 151 in the model — and the year-end table underneath first shows buying in front in year 13.

The two monthly bills are what make the crossing so late. The tenant pays ₩761,813 a month, all of it jeonse-loan interest of ₩700,000 and a guarantee fee of ₩61,813. The owner pays ₩3,637,525: ₩2,938,775 of principal and interest, ₩161,250 of holding tax, ₩537,500 of upkeep and depreciation. Set aside the ₩763,775 of that first installment that pays down the loan instead of disappearing, and the owner is out ₩2,873,750 against the tenant's ₩2,218,627. That second number is the card labeled Jeonse's hidden monthly rent: ₩1,456,814 of forgone return on the ₩445,000,000 of deposit funded from savings, plus the loan interest and the guarantee fee.

The defaults are Seoul's own numbers rather than round ones. KB's August 2026 housing survey put the median Seoul apartment at ₩1,291,670,000, which the ₩1,290,000,000 default rounds. On the lease side, the Seoul Economic Daily reported KB's April 2026 figures for Seoul apartment jeonse: an average of ₩681,470,000, a record, and a median of ₩600,000,000. The ₩645,000,000 default sits between them and puts the jeonse-to-price ratio at exactly 50 %.

English-language tools for Korean housing stop short of this comparison. YourKorea's jeonse-vs-wolse calculator converts a deposit and a monthly rent into comparable monthly costs and asks for an opportunity rate, which is the right instinct, but buying is not one of its options and it holds no horizon, no taxes and no renewals. Korea Money Guide's housing page pairs the same jeonse-versus-wolse comparison with a deposit-protection checklist. Seoul Homes publishes a guide titled Jeonse vs Wolse vs Buying that is prose from top to bottom, and its buying section names no acquisition tax, no break-even year and no renewal cap. Weave Living's rent-or-buy guide for expats gets closest of the group and still puts acquisition tax at around 4–5 % of the property price, where this engine derives ₩42,570,000 on the default home — 3.3 %, the rate that applies above ₩900,000,000 once the local education surtax is added. If the alternative you are weighing is a monthly-rent wolse contract rather than a deposit, the rent vs buy calculator is built for that comparison.

Korean Housing Words This Page Uses

Jeonse

A lease with no monthly rent, paid for with a refundable lump-sum deposit of roughly half to four-fifths of the home's value and returned in full when the contract ends. Contracts run two years.

Wolse

The monthly-rent lease: a smaller deposit plus a payment every month. It now dominates the market — the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport counted wolse at 68.3 % of residential lease transactions nationwide over the first seven months of 2026, up 6.5 points on the year.

Banjeonse

A half-and-half contract: a deposit smaller than a jeonse one, topped up with a monthly payment. This page has no field for the monthly half, so a banjeonse lease is best run on whichever of the two pure types it sits closer to.

Jeonse-to-price ratio (전세가율)

The deposit divided by the purchase price. The line under the chart prints it and calls under 70 % the comfortable band; the default state sits at 50 %.

Underwater jeonse (깡통전세)

A lease where the deposit is so close to the home's value that a modest price fall leaves the landlord unable to return it. The calculator switches its ratio line to a risk warning at 80 % and above.

Reverse jeonse (역전세)

The market deposit at renewal comes in below the one you paid, so the landlord owes you the difference in cash. Type a negative jeonse growth rate and the model refunds the difference at every renewal after the first, which the statutory right still raises by 5 %.

Statutory renewal right (2+2)

The Housing Lease Protection Act lets a tenant demand one renewal for a further two years, and caps that renewal's increase at one twentieth — 5 % — of the agreed deposit. One renewal only; later cycles follow the market.

Confirmed date (확정일자)

A date stamp on the signed lease from the district office. Together with a registered address it fixes the tenant's priority over the deposit if the property is auctioned, and the priority runs from the day of registration rather than the day of signature.

Acquisition tax (취득세)

The transfer tax a buyer pays: 1 % up to ₩600,000,000, a sliding band to ₩900,000,000, and 3 % above it, plus a local education surtax of one tenth of the tax. Homes over 85 m² carry a further 0.2 points.

Hidden monthly rent

The name this calculator gives to the sum of the forgone return on the locked deposit, the jeonse-loan interest and the guarantee fee. It is what makes a deposit-only lease comparable with a mortgage payment.

How to Use the Buy vs Jeonse Calculator

Eight fields are on screen when the page opens and thirteen more sit inside two closed folds. Every money field is denominated in units of 10,000 KRW, the convention every Korean property tool uses, and the suffix on each box says so: a ₩1,290,000,000 apartment is typed as 129000.

1. The two prices and how long you stay. Home price, Jeonse deposit, Mortgage amount, Mortgage rate, Time horizon, Investment return. The note across the block is blunt about it — six fields decide the answer, and everything below them is a detail you can leave alone. Time horizon offers even years only, because a jeonse contract resets every two years and a mid-cycle stop would misreport the renewal table.

2. What you expect. Home appreciation and Jeonse growth, both at 3 %. Holding them equal keeps the jeonse-to-price ratio flat over the long run. A negative jeonse growth rate is the reverse-jeonse case, and the model switches to refunding the difference at each renewal.

3. Buying costs and tax, a closed fold of eight fields: loan term, holding tax, upkeep and depreciation, registration and legal, a toggle for floor area over 85 m², one-home CGT relief, the effective capital-gains rate and the tax on investment gains. Acquisition tax and the agent's commission have no boxes — the engine derives both from the price using the statutory schedules.

4. Jeonse costs, a closed fold of five: the jeonse loan and its rate, the deposit-return guarantee, its fee rate, and whether you use the statutory renewal right. Switch the guarantee off and the fee drops to zero, replaced by a line saying the whole deposit is then exposed and that the risk is priced nowhere on the page.

5. Five cards read out the answer: the verdict and the size of the gap, When buying overtakes, Monthly cash gap in month one, Jeonse's hidden monthly rent, and Home equity at your horizon. A bar under them splits the owner's first bill into principal and interest 81 %, holding tax 4 %, upkeep 15 %. The chart plots both net-worth curves across the full 20 years with the crossing marked, and short lines below it carry the jeonse-to-price ratio, the cumulative forgone return on the locked deposit, and a warning if the mortgage clears ₩600,000,000 or the jeonse loan clears 80 % of the deposit.

6. Three tables follow. Where the money went is open, and both of its columns add to the net-worth row at the bottom. What the landlord asks at each renewal and Year by year, all 20 years arrive collapsed, so open them. Two more folds close the page: What moves the answer, which re-runs the model one input at a time around whatever state you are in, and Why the capital-gains tax is what it is.

The query string picks up every field you move off its default, which makes a copied URL a portable version of your own scenario rather than the page's.

Worked Buy vs Jeonse Scenarios

The state the page opens on: a ₩1.29bn apartment against a ₩645m deposit

The form arrives in this state, so there is nothing to set. On the day of signing, buying takes ₩762,310,000 out of your account and jeonse takes ₩447,580,000.

The buyer's side is ₩710,000,000 of own cash, ₩42,570,000 of acquisition tax with its education surtax, ₩7,740,000 of agent commission on the sale, and ₩2,000,000 of registration and legal work. The tenant's side is the ₩645,000,000 deposit less the ₩200,000,000 jeonse loan, plus ₩2,580,000 of commission on the lease. The ₩314,730,000 between them opens the tenant's investment account.

Each month after that, the owner pays ₩3,637,525 and the tenant ₩761,813, and the ₩2,875,712 difference goes into the tenant's account too. What the tenant cannot invest is the ₩445,000,000 of deposit paid from savings, and over ten years the return it does not earn adds up to ₩205,198,058. The line under the chart calls that the single biggest cost of a jeonse lease, and the one nobody bills you for.

Ten years in, net worth is ₩1,251,490,000 for the buyer and ₩1,272,560,000 for the tenant, so jeonse is ahead by ₩21,070,000. The two curves meet in month 151.

Your contract in Korea runs two more years

Move the horizon selector; every other field stays where it is.

Time horizon	If you buy	If you take jeonse	Who is ahead
2 years	₩799,490,000	₩853,220,000	Jeonse, by ₩53,730,000
10 years	₩1,251,490,000	₩1,272,560,000	Jeonse, by ₩21,070,000
20 years	₩2,005,800,000	₩1,929,650,000	Buying, by ₩76,150,000

The crossing stays at month 151 in all three. The horizon picks which row is settled and reported; it does not move the point where the lines meet. That is the job of the appreciation, interest and investment-return fields.

The two-year row is decided before you have lived anywhere. Acquisition tax of ₩42,570,000, agent commission of ₩7,740,000 and ₩2,000,000 of registration leave on day one, and the tenant's ₩314,730,000 head start is compounding the whole time. Two years of 3 % growth on the home closes neither gap. The tax table on this page makes the same point from the other end: sell in year one or year two and the capital-gains tax is ₩0, because after transaction costs there is no gain left to tax.

What the landlord asks in two years: the renewal ladder

Open What the landlord asks at each renewal and the deposit's whole future is laid out cycle by cycle. The first three that matter at the defaults:

Cycle	Years	Deposit needed	Change	Source
1	1–2	₩645,000,000	First contract	No top-up needed
2	3–4	₩677,250,000	+₩32,250,000	Renewal right, 5 % cap
5	9–10	₩808,670,000	+₩46,420,000	Market

Cycle 2 is the statutory renewal: capped at 5 %, and with no agent involved there is no commission that year. Cycle 5 has no cap at all and follows the jeonse growth rate you typed, compounded over the two years since the last reset. Ten years in, the deposit is ₩163,670,000 larger than the one you signed for.

The money comes out of the investment account first and out of a larger jeonse loan only when the account runs short, which is why every renewal flattens the tenant's curve a little. Whether you can produce the cash on the day it is asked for is a separate question from whether jeonse wins on paper, and it is the one that decides more moves than the break-even month does.

Reverse jeonse: the deposit falls instead of rising

Set Jeonse growth to −2 and leave the twenty other fields untouched. The first renewal is the statutory one, so cycle two still steps up 5 % to ₩677,250,000 whatever the market does; from cycle three on the deposit re-prices downward, the landlord refunds the difference, and the deposit at ten years lands at ₩599,940,000 against ₩808,670,000 in the default run.

The tenant's net worth at ten years rises to ₩1,308,820,000, ₩36,260,000 above the ₩1,272,560,000 of the 3 % case, because no cycle after the capped renewal takes money out of the investment account and each refund goes first against the ₩200,000,000 jeonse loan, cutting the interest bill with the balance. A falling deposit does not damage the tenant's balance sheet in this model.

What the model assumes is that the refund arrives on time. No probability of a landlord who cannot raise it is priced anywhere on the page, which is the reason the guarantee fee stays on the tenant's bill for every month of the comparison. Korea's National Police Agency counted ₩2.28 trillion of jeonse-fraud losses between 2022 and 2024, with 14,907 victims filing suit over that period, as reported by the Korea Herald.

Capital-Gains Tax by the Year You Sell (Default Settings)

Year of sale	Capital-gains tax	Why it lands there
Year 1	₩0	One year of 3 % growth is ₩38,700,000, less than the ₩60,280,000 of acquisition tax, round-trip agent commission and registration. There is no gain to tax.
Year 2	₩0	The two-year holding condition for one-home relief is met, and after allowable costs and the ₩2,500,000 annual basic deduction no taxable base survives.
Year 3	₩1,100,000	The long-holding deduction begins, and only the share of the gain matching the sale price above ₩1.2bn is taxable at all.
Year 10	₩5,500,000	The long-holding deduction has climbed to its 80 % ceiling and strips most of the taxable gain.
Year 20	₩24,210,000	The price has run far enough past ₩1.2bn that the taxable share grows faster than the capped deduction can offset it.

The Two Curves, and What a Deposit Costs a Month

\text{overtakes at} = \min\{\, m \;:\; NW_{\text{buy}}(m) \ge NW_{\text{jeonse}}(m) \,\}

$m$ = Month, 1 through 240. The model always runs the full 20 years; the horizon you pick only chooses the row it settles and reports.
$D_k$ = The jeonse deposit in contract cycle k. It is re-set every 24 months and never in between.
$L_j$ = Jeonse loan balance. Interest only, with the principal repaid out of the deposit when the deposit comes back.
$g$ = Monthly investment return, taken as the twelfth root of the annual rate rather than the annual rate divided by twelve.
$f$ = Guarantee fee rate a year, charged on the deposit. HUG's apartment band runs from 0.097 % to 0.211 %.
$\Pi$ = An investment account. There is one on each side, each remembering its own contributions, so tax falls only on growth.

Both sides are valued as though you settled up that day, and rebuilt from scratch every month:

NW_{\text{buy}}(m) = V(m) - \text{agent fee} - \text{CGT} - B(m) + \Pi_{\text{buy}}(m) - \text{tax on gains}

NW_{\text{jeonse}}(m) = D_k - L_j + \Pi_{\text{jeonse}}(m) - \text{tax on gains}

The home value compounds at the appreciation rate you set, the mortgage balance comes off the amortization schedule, and the deposit sits in the tenant's column at face value because it is coming back. Whichever side pays less that month invests the difference at a monthly rate derived from the annual one:

g = (1+r)^{1/12} - 1

Dividing 4 % by twelve gives 0.3333 % a month, which compounds to 4.07 % over a year. The twelfth root gives 0.32737 %, which compounds to 4 % exactly. Applied to the ₩445,000,000 of deposit paid from savings, the first month's forgone return is ₩1,456,814 under the correct rate and ₩1,483,333 under simple division — ₩26,519 a month of difference in the figure the hidden-rent card prints.

That card sums three terms:

\text{hidden rent} = (D_k - L_j)\,g + L_j\frac{i_j}{12} + D_k\frac{f}{12}

At the defaults that is ₩1,456,814 + ₩700,000 + ₩61,813 = ₩2,218,627. A bigger deposit inflates the first term. Funding more of the deposit with a jeonse loan shifts weight from the first term to the second, which shrinks the total whenever the loan rate is below the return you expect on the cash.

Every 24 months the deposit steps, along one of two branches:

D_{k+1} = \begin{cases} 1.05\,D_k & \text{first renewal, statutory right used} \\ (1+g_j)^2\,D_k & \text{every later cycle} \end{cases}

The cash needed is the increase plus a fresh lease commission, except on the capped renewal, which needs no agent. Acquisition tax has no input box of its own: the engine reads it off the statutory schedule, where 3 % applies above ₩900,000,000 and a local education surtax adds a tenth of the tax on top, giving 3.3 % of ₩1,290,000,000 and the ₩42,570,000 in the ledger. Floor area above 85 m² adds 0.2 points of rural development surtax.

Where Buy vs Jeonse Comparisons Go Wrong

Pricing a jeonse lease at what leaves your account. The tenant's bank statement shows ₩761,813 a month, and the real cost is ₩2,218,627. The ₩1,456,814 in between is return the deposit does not earn, and over ten years it comes to ₩205,198,058 — larger than the acquisition tax, the agent commissions and the registration fees on the buying side put together.
Assuming a foreign resident borrows on the same terms as a Korean one. Seoulz reports that the two dedicated jeonse-loan products for foreign residents, KB's KB WELCOME PLUS and Shinhan's SOL Global, both stop at 80 % of the deposit and at ₩200,000,000 outright, with the guarantee routed through Seoul Guarantee Insurance rather than the state institutions Korean borrowers use. The ₩200,000,000 default is that ceiling. Raise it and you are modeling a loan a foreign borrower may not be offered.
Treating the ₩600,000,000 mortgage cap as the constraint that binds. The Financial Services Commission's measures of 15 October 2025 held the ceiling at ₩600,000,000 for a home worth up to ₩1.5bn and tightened the loan-to-value ratio in Seoul and the newly regulated zones to 40 %, down from 70 %. Forty percent of ₩1,290,000,000 is ₩516,000,000, so the ₩580,000,000 default clears the cash cap and fails the ratio. The page warns above ₩600,000,000 and never tests LTV, so check the ratio yourself before trusting the answer.
Overlooking that a foreign buyer in Seoul now needs permission first. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has kept all of Seoul, 23 Gyeonggi cities and counties and 9 Incheon districts inside a foreign land-transaction permit zone through 25 August 2027, so approval and a funding plan come before the contract, not after it. KED Global reported that the permit obliges the buyer to move in within four months and stay two years. Foreign home purchases across the capital region fell 27 % in the ten months after the first designation, to 4,397 from 6,024.
Expecting the 5 % renewal cap every two years. The statutory renewal right is exercisable once. The calculator applies the cap to the second cycle and lets every later one follow the market, which at a mild 3 % assumption still means an increase of ₩46,420,000 in cycle five, against ₩32,250,000 at the capped one.
Reading a falling deposit as a loss. At −2 % jeonse growth the tenant's ten-year net worth reaches ₩1,308,820,000, above the ₩1,272,560,000 of the default run, because the renewals stop draining the investment account and each refund pays down the jeonse loan. The exposure is to a landlord who cannot produce the refund, and no version of this model carries that probability.

When This Comparison Is the Right One to Run

Two live options make this page worth opening: an apartment somebody has quoted you a price for, and a jeonse deposit you could raise. Both columns are worth exactly as much as those two figures.

A lease coming up for renewal is the common case, because the renewal table prices the next two years and the verdict card prices the alternative to signing again. Savings sitting between a deposit and a down payment are the second, since both tie up capital and one of them buys equity with it. And a stay of known length — a posting, a contract, a degree — turns the whole comparison into a single reading: does your horizon reach month 151 at your own numbers, or stop short of it.

Some questions belong elsewhere. Under two or three years the transaction costs have settled the matter before any assumption gets a vote: ₩42,570,000 of acquisition tax alone outweighs a year of appreciation at the default rate, which is why the tax table shows ₩0 of capital-gains tax in years one and two — those sales lose money. For the repayment itself and the schedule behind it, the mortgage calculator is the shorter route, and the compound interest calculator isolates what a deposit would have grown to on its own. For a wolse lease, with its small deposit and a payment every month, the rent vs buy calculator has the fields this one lacks.

Buying to let the place out falls outside the model entirely. A landlord has no tenant counterfactual to compare against, faces different tax treatment, and books the deposit collected from a tenant as a liability. Everything here assumes you occupy what you buy — the same premise the one-home capital-gains relief runs on.

What This Model Leaves Out

It never checks whether you can borrow the amounts. No debt-service ratio, no loan-to-value test, no lender's view of your income or visa length. Two warning lines appear when the mortgage passes ₩600,000,000 or the jeonse loan passes 80 % of the deposit, and both are notices rather than blocks — the calculation runs on regardless. Enter the amount a lender has put in writing, or the answer describes a loan nobody will fund.

Foreign-resident eligibility is outside the form. Permit-zone approval, the funding plan a district office asks for, a guarantor requirement, and lenders capping a loan term at the length of a visa all change what is available to you without changing a single figure on this page. Confirm what you can sign and what you can borrow before you trust the verdict, and treat what follows as arithmetic rather than immigration or tax advice.

There is no probability of losing the deposit. No defensible number exists for it, and the model declines to invent one. It charges the deposit-return guarantee fee as a real monthly cost instead, and prints a risk warning once the deposit passes 80 % of the price. Switch the guarantee off and the fee vanishes along with the only thing standing in for that risk.

One home, owner-occupied, is the assumption throughout. The comprehensive real-estate holding tax that starts above ₩1.2bn of assessed value has no field of its own and has to be folded into the holding-tax rate, whose helper says so. Acquisition-tax surcharges of 8 % to 12 % on second and third homes sit outside the engine entirely.

Management fees, moving costs and the long-term repair reserve are absent by design. Whoever occupies the home pays them on both paths, so they cancel out of a comparison. The 0.5 % upkeep rate covers what only an owner pays: repairs and depreciation.

No rate ever moves. A 3 % assumption applies with the same flatness in the twentieth year as in the first, and neither a variable mortgage repricing nor a landlord who backs down at a renewal has anywhere to appear. Two runs are worth more than one here — a gloomy set of assumptions and a cheerful set, with the true answer somewhere in the span between the two verdicts. The What moves the answer fold performs that exercise one field at a time.

The defaults carry a date and the statutes carry a longer one. The badge above the form says the prices and rates are those of September 2026. Acquisition-tax bands, brokerage ceilings, the 5 % renewal cap and the ₩1.2bn relief threshold outlast them by years; the mortgage rate and the median Seoul price will not last a season.

Buy vs Jeonse in Korea — Frequently Asked Questions

How many years do I have to stay for buying to beat jeonse?

At the numbers this page loads with, 12 years 7 months — month 151. Ten years in, jeonse is still ahead by ₩21,070,000; at twenty years buying leads by ₩76,150,000; at two years jeonse leads by ₩53,730,000. Your own crossing will sit somewhere else, and the two fields that move it furthest are home appreciation and the return you expect on invested cash. Try a low value and a high value in each, and trust the verdict most when both attempts point the same way.

Why does a jeonse lease cost anything if there is no rent?

Three things run every month: the return the locked deposit does not earn, the interest on any jeonse loan, and the deposit-return guarantee fee. At the defaults they total ₩2,218,627, of which only ₩761,813 leaves your bank account. The other ₩1,456,814 is income the deposit never generated.

Can a foreigner sign a jeonse contract in Korea?

Yes, with residency and the capital, though the financing is narrower. Seoulz reports that the two jeonse-loan products aimed at foreign residents, KB WELCOME PLUS and Shinhan's SOL Global, cap the loan at 80 % of the deposit and at ₩200,000,000, and route the guarantee through Seoul Guarantee Insurance rather than the state guarantors Korean tenants use. Many direct leases also expect a Korean guarantor. Set the jeonse loan field to the amount you could raise, since the part of the deposit you cover from savings is what drives the hidden monthly rent.

Can a foreigner buy an apartment in Seoul right now?

Buying is open to foreign nationals, but the capital region requires permission first. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has kept all of Seoul, 23 Gyeonggi cities and counties and 9 Incheon districts designated as a foreign land-transaction permit zone through 25 August 2027, so a foreign buyer applies at the district office with a funding plan before signing. KED Global reported that the permit carries an obligation to move in within four months and live in the home for two years. Outside those zones the older regime still applies, with a report to the local office after the purchase.

How much is acquisition tax on a ₩1.29 billion apartment?

₩42,570,000. Above ₩900,000,000 the rate is 3 %, and the local education surtax adds a tenth of that, giving 3.3 % of the whole price. A home over 85 m² carries 0.2 points more.

How much can my landlord raise the deposit at renewal?

The statutory renewal right caps one renewal at 5 %, which is ₩32,250,000 on the default deposit and costs no agent commission. It can be used once. After that the deposit follows the market: at a 3 % growth assumption, cycle five asks for ₩46,420,000 more, and ten years of renewals leave the deposit ₩163,670,000 above the one you first signed. The renewal table prints the figure for every cycle and where the money comes from.

Is reverse jeonse bad for me as a tenant?

On the balance sheet it helps. Set jeonse growth to −2 % and the ten-year deposit falls to ₩599,940,000, while the tenant's net worth rises to ₩1,308,820,000 — ₩36,260,000 above the default run, because no renewal after the capped first one drains the investment account and each refund pays down the jeonse loan. The exposure is to a landlord who cannot raise the refund on the day it falls due, and that probability appears nowhere in the arithmetic. It is the reason to keep the guarantee switched on.

Do I pay capital-gains tax when I sell the apartment?

Only on the slice of the gain that matches a sale price above ₩1.2bn, and only once the one-home conditions are met. At the defaults that is ₩0 in years one and two, ₩5,500,000 at ten years and ₩24,210,000 at twenty. Sell inside two years and the relief and the long-holding deduction both disappear: the rate is 77 % under one year and 66 % between one and two, local income tax included.

How do I protect my jeonse deposit as a foreign tenant?

Register the address and get the confirmed-date stamp on the lease at the district office, and do it the day you move in — priority runs from registration, not from the date on the contract. Songpa-gu's own English service page describes the alien registration certificate as equivalent to a certificate of resident registration issued to Korean residents, which is what makes the registered address work for a foreign tenant. The deposit-return guarantee is the second layer, and this calculator charges its fee every month rather than pretending it is free.

How big a mortgage can I get on a Seoul apartment?

The ceiling sits below what this form will let you type. The Financial Services Commission's 15 October 2025 measures capped the loan at ₩600,000,000 for a home worth up to ₩1.5bn, ₩400,000,000 from ₩1.5bn to ₩2.5bn and ₩200,000,000 above that, while cutting the loan-to-value ratio in Seoul and the newly regulated zones from 70 % to 40 %. On a ₩1,290,000,000 home the ratio binds first, at ₩516,000,000. The calculator warns past the cash cap and does not test the ratio, so enter the figure a lender has quoted you.

Why does another Korean housing calculator give me a different answer?

Most of them are not running this comparison. YourKorea's tool and Korea Money Guide's page both weigh jeonse against wolse and leave buying out entirely, with no horizon and no taxes. Seoul Homes covers all three options in prose and names no break-even year. The three things that decide the answer here are whether ownership costs and capital-gains tax are counted, whether the deposit is re-priced every two years, and whether the comparison runs long enough to reach the crossing at month 151.

How accurate is this calculator?

The statutory pieces come from the National Tax Service's capital-gains calculation flow and rate table, the Ministry of Government Legislation's acquisition-tax bands, Seoul's brokerage-fee ordinance, the Housing Lease Protection Act and HUG's guarantee fee schedule. The model steps through 240 months one at a time and rounds only where a figure is printed. Its accuracy is bounded by the forecasting rather than the arithmetic: nobody knows what a Seoul apartment appreciates at over twenty years, and that one field moves the verdict further than every tax rate on the form combined.

Is this calculator free, and where do the numbers I type go?

No charge, no account, no storage. Your browser does all of the work: 240 months of amortization, two investment accounts tracking their own contributions, the renewal ladder and the Korean tax schedules, recomputed on every keystroke. The address bar is the only place a figure you typed ends up, and it goes there so that a copied link reopens the same scenario on somebody else's screen.

I have the break-even month. What do I do with it?

Measure the distance between that month and the length of stay you would bet on. Twelve years and seven months against a three-year contract is a settled question. Twelve years and seven months against a twelve-year plan is two numbers sitting on top of each other, and the distance between them is smaller than the error in the assumptions that produced either one. Open What moves the answer next and look for a single field capable of reversing the verdict. Home appreciation or the investment return in that role means the page has given you a forecast wearing the clothes of a calculation. Finish with the second row of the renewal table. That row names the sum a landlord will want from you in two years, and a sum you cannot produce closes the question long before month 151 arrives.

Sources & References

Content verified by the Smart Calculators Team