Korean Housing Subscription First-Priority Checker

Applications for private housing in Korea are split into first and second rank, and winners are drawn from the first rank by points or by lottery. However high your points, they mean nothing unless you clear the first-rank conditions. Enter where the development is, where you live, the unit size you want, how long you have held your subscription account and how much is in it, plus your household situation, and this calculator checks each first-rank condition in turn. Where a condition is not met it does not stop at "no": it tells you how much deposit is missing and how many months of membership remain.

The trap is that there are two different "regions". The membership-period condition depends on where the development is located, while the deposit threshold depends on where you are registered as living on the date of the sales announcement. Live in the provinces and apply for a Seoul apartment, and the membership period follows the Seoul rule while the deposit follows the provincial rule. That is why the two regions are chosen separately.

Anyone who wants to confirm first-rank status before an announcement appears. The deposit in particular only needs to be in place by the announcement date, so knowing the shortfall lets you top up in time. Membership months accrue only with time, so seeing how many remain tells you which announcements you can realistically enter.

People about to move also use it. Because the deposit threshold follows your address, moving from Seoul or Busan to another region lowers the amount required, and moving the other way raises it. Anyone hoping to trade up to a larger unit should check as well, since a higher size band means a higher deposit.

The basis is 주택공급에 관한 규칙 제28조제1항 and 별표 2. The membership period depends on where the development is: 24 months in speculation-overheated and subscription-overheated districts, 12 months in the capital region, 6 months elsewhere and 1 month in a shrinking area. A provincial governor may extend the capital-region figure to 24 months and the non-capital figure to 12 months by public notice; whether that has happened appears in the announcement, so the calculator judges on the default and simply flags the possibility. The deposit threshold comes from 별표 2 by residence and unit size: for 85㎡ or less it is ₩3,000,000 in Seoul and Busan, ₩2,500,000 in other metropolitan cities and ₩2,000,000 elsewhere, and for all sizes ₩15,000,000, ₩10,000,000 and ₩5,000,000 respectively.

The calculation tests five items in order. Whether the membership period meets the location rule and whether the deposit meets the residence-and-size threshold are checked everywhere. In speculation-overheated and subscription-overheated districts three more apply: you must be the head of household, no one in the household may have won another home in the past 5 years, and the household may not own two or more homes. All five must pass for first rank. After that come the points-versus-lottery shares: in a speculation-overheated district, 80% of units over 85㎡ go by points, while only 40% of units of 60㎡ or less do, the rest going by lottery.

The calculator's default is a Seoul resident applying for an apartment of 85㎡ or less in a speculation-overheated district: a head of household who owns no home, 36 months into the account, with ₩3,000,000 on deposit and no recent win. The required membership is 24 months, so 36 is comfortable, and the ₩3,000,000 threshold for a Seoul resident at 85㎡ or less is met exactly. As head of household with no recent win and no second home, the three regulated-district conditions pass too, giving 0 unmet items and first rank.

Now take someone aiming at the same regulated-district development but living in a non-metropolitan area, wanting a unit of 102㎡ or less, 18 months into the account with ₩2,500,000 on deposit, and not the head of household. The membership requirement is 24 months, leaving 6 to go; the threshold for that residence and size is ₩3,000,000, leaving ₩500,000 short; and not being head of household fails a regulated-district condition. With 3 unmet items this is not first rank. The deposit can be topped up by ₩500,000 before the announcement and head-of-household status can be arranged by separating the household register, but the 6 months of membership can only be waited out.

The most common mistake is sizing the deposit to where the development is rather than where you live. The threshold follows your registered address. A provincial resident applying in Seoul who deposits to the Seoul figure has paid more than needed; a Seoul resident applying in the provinces who deposits to the provincial figure falls short. Timing is the next trap: the deposit must be in place by the announcement date, and money paid in afterwards does not count for that announcement.

People also forget the three regulated-district conditions. In speculation-overheated and subscription-overheated districts, meeting the account conditions is not enough if you are not the head of household, if anyone in the household has won in the past 5 years, or if the household owns two or more homes. A spouse's win before the marriage becomes the household's history once you are one household. And first rank is only the starting line: among first-rank applicants, selection is by points or lottery, so if your points are low, a size band or district with a larger lottery share is the better target. Bear in mind too that this calculator covers private housing, not public housing.