"Starting in March, KTX (high-speed rail) will run here, and in June the GTX (metropolitan express railway)-A line will be extended to Seoul Station. The Suseo-Gwangju Line and the Suseo Station integrated transfer center are also slated to break ground, and nearby apartment reconstruction projects are picking up speed, so, to exaggerate only a little, you blink and asking prices jump by 100 million to 200 million won. A 30-pyeong unit at Samik Apartment right in front of Suseo Station transacted at 2 billion won a year ago, and the asking price for the one listing that just came out is 3.6 billion won," said an employee at a certified real estate agency in Suseo-dong, Gangnam District, Seoul.
Around 1 p.m. on the 9th, the inside of Suseo Station on Seoul Subway Line No. 3 was packed with people. Suseo Station is traversed by four rail lines — Line No. 3, the Suin-Bundang Line, GTX-A, and SRT (Suseo high-speed rail) — and has heavy foot traffic. Exiting from Suseo Station Exit No. 1, the roadway was clogged, but the sidewalk was quieter than expected. A few apartment complexes were the most noticeable buildings. It felt quite different from Seoul Station and Yongsan Station, which are densely developed and crammed with buildings.
A sweeping transformation is not far off for Suseo Station. A large-scale station area development project is underway, and the area will be reborn as an integrated transfer center with up to 26 floors that includes a department store and a hotel. On a 100,000-square-meter site, a Shinsegae department store, a 4-star hotel, and a research and development (R&D) center will be built. With a project budget of 1.6 trillion won, construction is slated to start within the year, with completion targeted for 2033.
Its position as the "transportation hub" of the southeastern sector will also be strengthened. KTX will begin service at Suseo Station in March, which until now has only had the less-frequent SRT. GTX-A, which has been operated in two segments — "Unjeong–Seoul Station" and "Suseo–Dongtan" — will be consolidated. The Suseo-Gwangju Line is also expected to break ground within the year. The Suseo-Gwangju Line is a 19.4-kilometer rail line that starts at Suseo Station, passes Moran Station in Seongnam-dong, Jungwon District, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, and connects to Gyeonggi Gwangju Station in Opo-eup, Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
Record-high price transactions continue around Suseo Station. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's actual transaction price disclosure system, a 60-square-meter exclusive-use unit at Samik Apartment in Suseo-dong recorded a new high when it transacted for 2.35 billion won in November last year. That is more than a 700 million won increase compared with the 1.575 billion won transaction on Jan. 7 last year. Under the readjustment of the district unit plan for the Suseo housing site development district, the Suseo Samik Apartment became eligible to upgrade its land use from Type 3 residential (floor area ratio of 250% or less) to quasi-residential (floor area ratio of 400% or less).
As the reconstruction business case improves, home prices are rising quickly. An 84-square-meter exclusive-use unit at Samsung Apartment in Suseo-dong, which transacted for around 2 billion won early last year, transacted at an all-time high of 2.77 billion won last month. A Suseo-dong certified real estate agency employee said, "Prices have risen sharply, but many people are looking for listings," adding, "While the volume of actual transactions is not increasing significantly, record-high prices keep being set."
Irwon-dong, which is grouped with Suseo-dong in Gangnam District as part of the Suseo housing site development district, is also benefiting from development. Here, reconstruction and redevelopment projects overlap, and sellers are effectively naming their price. Since the decision last May to readjust the district unit plan for the Suseo housing site development district, reconstruction of 16,000 households in the area has been taking clearer shape. The front-runners are Garam Apartment and Sangnoksoo Apartment in Irwon-dong. Both are five-story apartments with a low floor area ratio of 109%, making them viewed as highly profitable for reconstruction.
Banners celebrating the passage of the reconstruction maintenance plan through the Seoul city review were hung throughout Garam Apartment. Major builders including Samsung C&T, Daewoo E&C, GS Engineering and Construction, POSCO E&C, Lotte E&C, and DL E&C are all lining up, signaling an intense bidding war from the outset. According to the maintenance plan, Garam Apartment will be reborn from five stories and 496 households to a maximum of 25 stories and 818 households (including 61 rental units). Sangnoksoo will be transformed from five stories and 740 households to 25 stories and 1,126 households (including 74 rental units). A 100.94-square-meter exclusive-use unit at Garam Apartment transacted for 3.43 billion won last month, up 850 million won from the 2.58 billion won transaction in Feb. last year.
Olympic Family Town in Munjeong-dong, Songpa District, is also cited as a complex benefiting from Suseo Station. Cross Gwangpyeong Bridge, which connects to Tancheon from this complex, and Suseo Station is right there. In a straight line, it is about 1 kilometer away. Its advantage is that it is a large-scale complex, which is rare near Suseo Station. It has 4,494 households. Olympic Family Town is also pursuing reconstruction. It is slated to be rebuilt up to 26 stories with 6,620 households. A 104.39-square-meter exclusive-use unit transacted for 2.83 billion won in November last year, which is 1 billion won higher than at the start of the year.