6 Months Left on My Jeonse Lease: Really Torn Between Buying vs. Renewing
We're a dual-income couple in our third year of marriage, currently living in a 300 million won jeonse rental. We still have about 100 million won left on a loan we took out when we were newlyweds.
Home prices have fallen in a way that's hard to read, so I can't tell whether now is the bottom. Some people around me say, "If you're actually going to live there, now is better," while others say, "It'll drop further"...
If anyone made a similar decision around this stage, I'd love to hear what criteria you used.
9 answers
Agreed — if you're actually going to live there, it's better to pound the pavement than spend time agonizing over it.
If you base your decision criteria on home price predictions, you won't get an answer. When I was deciding, I only signed if all three of these passed: ① whether the monthly repayment burden was over 30% of income, ② whether I was prepared to live there for at least 5 years, ③ whether I would still have six months' worth of emergency savings left. If even one is unclear, I think renewing the lease is the right call. You can't predict home prices anyway.
Well, aren't the people saying "if you're going to live in it, now is better" the same ones who said the exact same thing back when home prices were rising? That's not a basis for judgment—it's just cheerleading. At today's interest rates, for a property in the 300 million won range, have you actually run the numbers on acquisition tax, brokerage fees, and interest? This seems like a stage that calls for calculations, not deliberation.