ⅠThe question
The macro is under strain; the surplus holds it together
The structural case requires no view on rates. Deploying into it does.
The structural case rests on more households, fewer small units in the pipeline, and a shift from jeonse (a lease in which the tenant pays no rent but lends the landlord a large lump-sum deposit, returned at the end of the term) to monthly rent. It does not depend on where rates sit, what the won is doing, or which regulation passed last quarter. But capital is not deployed into a thesis in a vacuum. It asks whether the environment (the cost of capital, the currency, the policy regime) helps, hinders, or makes no difference.
For Seoul the answer comes in two parts. The macro is under genuine pressure — the Bank of Korea's base rate stands at 3.00% and the won at 1,406 to the dollar — and the external surplus is what holds it together. The real obstacle lies one level down, in household debt and the policy response it has forced.
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