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SUMMARY
A realistic Daejeon apartment rental yield today is about 2.5% to 4% gross for most conventional apartments, while carefully chosen very small rental-focused units can reach roughly 5% to 7%.
Apartment size is one of the clearest yield dividers in the city. Large prime family units can sit near 2%, mainstream apartments cluster closer to 3%, older small apartments can reach around 4%, and some tiny Bongmyeong units move well above 5%.
The higher yields do not come from extraordinary rents. They mostly come from very low purchase prices: a tiny apartment can cost a fraction of a prime Dunsan family unit while still collecting a surprisingly large share of its monthly rent.
Korea's deposit-heavy rental system makes headline yield figures incomplete. Annual monthly rent divided by purchase price is still the cleanest property-level comparison, but a large refundable deposit can materially reduce the owner's own capital tied up in the deal.
Daejeon's high jeonse-to-sale relationship reinforces that point. With apartment jeonse values around 71.7% of sale prices in the latest data cited here, tenants can provide a large share of the capital supporting the property even when monthly cash income is modest.
Yuseong is the strongest place to test whether the small-unit yield story is real because the rental market is deep rather than anecdotal. Bongmyeong, Wonshinheung and Yongsan all show substantial wolse activity across many complexes.
Dunsan is almost the opposite trade. Buyers of expensive family apartments are paying for schools, location, scarcity and possible reconstruction upside, so rental income alone often looks thin relative to the purchase price.
Operating costs narrow the gap quickly. A 6% to 7% gross small apartment can fall toward roughly 4% to 5% after vacancy, turnover, brokerage and repairs, while a conventional 3% apartment can end up much closer to 2%.
Financing also raises the hurdle. The Bank of Korea's Base Rate is now 3.00%, while the July 2026 banking data used here show average rates of 3.21% on new deposits and 4.27% on new loans, leaving little room for a leveraged apartment yielding only 2% to 3%.
For an income-led purchase, 4% gross is a sensible minimum hurdle and 5% or more is where Daejeon becomes genuinely interesting. A 2% prime apartment can still make sense, but only when the buyer is deliberately underwriting resale value, school-district scarcity or redevelopment rather than rent.
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What rental yield can you get on an apartment in Daejeon?
For most normal Daejeon apartments, a realistic gross rental yield is about 2.5% to 4%, while some very small rental-focused units can still reach roughly 5% to 7%.
Recent Ministry of Land transaction records make the range unusually clear. In Dunsan, a 101.94 m² Hanmaru apartment recently sold for around ₩1.06 billion. Comparable monthly-rent contracts have commonly been around ₩100 million deposit plus ₩1.6–1.8 million a month. Using ₩1.8 million gives only about 2.0% gross rent on the purchase price.
A 70.55 m² Kkumnamu apartment changes the picture. Recent sales have clustered around ₩375–390 million, while contracts around ₩20 million deposit plus ₩900,000 monthly rent have been recorded. That puts the simple gross yield close to 2.8–2.9%.
Smaller Dunsan apartments move higher again. Bora 2 units around 41.82 m² have recently sold for roughly ₩173–198 million, while many monthly contracts sit around ₩5–10 million deposit plus ₩500,000–600,000 rent. Depending on the exact purchase, yields around 3.5–4% are realistic.
Then there is Bongmyeong. A roughly 28 m² Skyview City apartment recently traded around ₩98–115 million, while repeated rental contracts have come through at roughly ₩500,000–600,000 per month with modest deposits. That can push the gross yield above 6%.
| Daejeon example | Recent purchase price | Typical monthly rent structure | Approx. gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hanmaru, Dunsan, 101.94 m² | ~₩1.06bn | ₩100m + ₩1.6–1.8m/month | ~1.8–2.0% |
| Kkumnamu, Dunsan, 70.55 m² | ~₩375–390m | ₩15–20m + ₩0.9m/month | ~2.8–2.9% |
| Bora 2, Dunsan, 41.82 m² | ~₩173–198m | ₩5–10m + ₩0.5–0.6m/month | ~3.3–4.2% |
| Skyview City, Bongmyeong, ~28 m² | ~₩98–115m | ₩5–10m + ₩0.5–0.6m/month | ~5.2–7.3% |
Why is Daejeon rental yield so hard to calculate properly?
Daejeon rental yield can look very different depending on how we treat Korea's refundable tenant deposits, so a simple annual-rent-divided-by-price calculation only tells part of the story.
Take a ₩400 million apartment renting for ₩1 million a month with a ₩20 million deposit. Annual rent is ₩12 million, giving a straightforward 3% gross yield on the apartment value.
The tenant has also provided ₩20 million that the landlord can use during the lease. The owner's net capital tied up in the property is therefore closer to ₩380 million before purchase costs, and ₩12 million of rent equals roughly 3.16% of that amount.
Push the deposit to ₩100 million and keep the same rent, and the landlord has around ₩300 million tied up. The cash rent then represents 4% of the owner's capital.
That does not turn the apartment itself into a 4% yielding asset because the entire deposit has to be repaid. Still, it explains why Korean landlords often care about both the yield on the property value and the return on the cash they have actually committed.
Pure jeonse makes the distinction even bigger. A landlord can receive a deposit worth more than half the apartment's value and collect almost no monthly rent. Conventional rental yield becomes nearly meaningless in that situation.
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Do small Daejeon apartments really yield more than family apartments?
Yes. Apartment size currently explains a large part of the yield difference in Daejeon, and recent transactions suggest the gap can be several percentage points.
A large Hanmaru apartment worth around ₩1 billion may only collect about ₩1.6–1.8 million a month when the tenant deposit is kept around ₩100 million. That leaves the gross yield near 2%.
At Kkumnamu, a roughly ₩380 million apartment can still produce around ₩900,000 per month, moving the yield toward 3%.
Bora 2 goes further. A small apartment below ₩200 million regularly rents around ₩500,000–600,000 a month.
In Bongmyeong, the smallest apartments sometimes cost barely one-tenth as much as a large prime Dunsan family apartment, yet their monthly rent can still reach one-third of what the expensive apartment collects.
That relationship is why investors searching for income end up looking at a completely different part of Daejeon from families buying their own homes.
| Daejeon apartment type | Typical price range | Typical gross yield | What buyers are mainly paying for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prime large family apartment | ₩800m–₩1bn+ | ~2% | Location, schools, scarcity, redevelopment |
| Mainstream mid-sized apartment | ₩300m–₩500m | ~2.5–3.5% | Mixed owner-occupier and rental demand |
| Older small apartment | ₩150m–₩250m | ~3.5–4.5% | Affordability and rental income |
| Very small rental-focused unit | ₩90m–₩150m | ~5–7%+ | Cash yield and tenant demand |
Why are Dunsan apartment yields so low today?
Dunsan apartment yields are low because sale prices are being supported by school demand, central location and redevelopment expectations much more strongly than monthly rents.
Hanmaru shows the gap. Recent 101.94 m² sales have repeatedly landed around ₩1 billion, with transactions as high as roughly ₩1.06–1.07 billion. Monthly contracts for the same size have generally produced around ₩1.45–1.8 million when deposits are around ₩100 million.
That relationship is hard to justify from rental income alone.
The same apartments can command jeonse deposits around ₩530–630 million, which tells us families are prepared to commit substantial capital to live there. Buyers, however, are paying another several hundred million won above that rental value.
Part of that premium reflects what Dunsan offers today. Part of it reflects what buyers think established complexes could become if reconstruction moves forward.
This is why a 2% yield in Dunsan should not automatically be called a poor investment. It is simply a weak income investment. A buyer paying ₩1 billion for an old family apartment there is usually making a much larger bet on the location and future resale value.
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Can you still get a decent rental yield in Dunsan?
Yes. Dunsan still offers rental yields around 3.5% to 4% on some smaller, older apartments, even though its best-known family complexes sit much lower.
Bora 2 is a useful example because the rental pattern repeats rather than relying on one unusually good contract. Recent 41.82 m² monthly leases have included ₩10 million deposit plus ₩500,000 rent, ₩10 million plus ₩550,000, ₩5 million plus ₩600,000 and several contracts around the same range.
Recent sales for that size have mostly been around ₩173–198 million.
Buy at ₩185 million and collect ₩550,000 monthly, and annual rent is ₩6.6 million. That is about 3.57% gross before considering the deposit.
At ₩600,000 monthly rent, the same purchase gives roughly 3.9%.
Kkumnamu sits lower. Its latest 70.55 m² sales have moved up toward ₩375–390 million, while recent rents have often been around ₩700,000 with a larger deposit or ₩900,000 with a smaller one. That leaves the income yield closer to 2.5–3%.
So there is still a workable Dunsan income market, but we have to move down in size and price to find it.
Why are Bongmyeong apartment yields much higher?
Bongmyeong can produce some of Daejeon's best apartment yields because small units remain cheap enough that ordinary monthly rents translate into unusually high percentages.
Skyview City captures the economics well. Roughly 28 m² apartments have recently sold around ₩98–115 million.
Recent rental contracts include ₩10 million deposit plus ₩600,000 per month, ₩5 million plus ₩580,000, ₩10 million plus ₩540,000, and ₩10 million plus ₩530,000. Those are repeated transactions rather than one exceptional asking rent.
Take a ₩100 million purchase and ₩600,000 monthly rent. Annual rent reaches ₩7.2 million, equivalent to a 7.2% simple gross yield.
Use a more conservative ₩110 million purchase and ₩550,000 rent and the yield is still 6%.
Bongmyeong also has a large pool of small apartments competing for tenants, so a high advertised yield should never be accepted at face value. Yet the underlying market is active enough that the 5–7% range cannot be dismissed as a theoretical calculation.
My Real Estate's Ministry of Land database currently contains more than 9,500 reported apartment monthly-rent contracts in Bongmyeong across 82 complexes. Skyview City alone has more than 400 recorded contracts in the database.
That depth is a much stronger reason to take these yields seriously than simply saying that Bongmyeong is near universities or research jobs.
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Is Yuseong really Daejeon's strongest rental market?
Yuseong is currently the clearest place in Daejeon to look for apartment rental activity, especially for smaller units and tenants who prefer monthly rent.
Aptbong's Ministry of Land database already shows more than 2,400 apartment wolse contracts in Yuseong this year across roughly 280 complexes.
Bongmyeong accounts for around 600 of those contracts. Wonshinheung has more than 350, while Yongsan has around 260. The activity is spread across several neighborhoods rather than depending on one small rental pocket.
A second dataset from My Real Estate, which covers a longer historical period, contains almost 36,000 Yuseong apartment monthly-rent contracts. Its latest reported contract was recorded only days ago.
Recent data from Ownly also show that apartments dominate Yuseong's monthly-rental transactions. In its latest three-month sample, 160 of 201 reported rental transactions were apartments. The median apartment rent was around ₩500,000 with a ₩5 million deposit.
That combination of volume, recent activity and many different complexes gives Yuseong a deeper tenant market than a simple university-neighborhood story would suggest.
| Yuseong rental area | Apartment wolse contracts recorded this year | Rental profile |
|---|---|---|
| Bongmyeong | ~600 | Dense small-unit market |
| Wonshinheung | ~360 | Larger newer apartments mixed with rentals |
| Yongsan | ~260 | Higher-value family rentals |
| Noeun | ~150 | Established residential demand |
| Yuseong overall | 2,400+ | Daejeon's deepest monthly-rent district |
Does Daejeon's high jeonse ratio help landlords?
Yes. Daejeon's apartment jeonse values are currently high relative to purchase prices, which can reduce the amount of owner capital tied up in a property even when the monthly cash yield looks modest.
The latest KOSIS data put Daejeon's apartment jeonse-to-sale ratio at around 71.7%, up about 1.3 percentage points from a year earlier.
The nationwide ratio was around 69%. Seoul was only about 52.3%.
That is a meaningful difference. At the citywide ratio, a Daejeon apartment worth ₩500 million corresponds to roughly ₩358 million of jeonse value.
A landlord using a jeonse-heavy strategy could therefore own the property with far less personal capital than the ₩500 million headline price suggests.
But the trade-off is obvious: a large jeonse deposit usually comes with very little monthly income.
For investors who want recurring cash flow, the more useful opportunity is often a middle ground where the tenant provides a meaningful deposit and still pays enough monthly rent to keep the cash yield attractive.
A high Daejeon jeonse ratio helps that structure because tenant demand is supporting a large share of the apartment's value.
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How much do vacancy and costs cut Daejeon rental yields?
A 6% gross Daejeon apartment can easily become a 4–5% investment after vacancy, tenant turnover and ordinary ownership costs, while a 3% apartment has far less room for mistakes.
Imagine a ₩100 million apartment renting for ₩600,000 a month. Full occupancy gives ₩7.2 million a year, or 7.2% gross.
One empty month cuts rent to ₩6.6 million and the yield to 6.6%. Two empty months reduce it to 6%.
Small apartments can also turn over more frequently. A new tenant may mean brokerage fees, cleaning, appliance replacement or small repairs before the next lease starts.
Older Daejeon apartments introduce a different cost. The unit itself may be cheap, but plumbing, heating, windows, kitchens and bathrooms eventually need money.
Large family apartments usually begin from a lower headline yield, yet tenants often stay longer and turnover costs can be less frequent.
So we would not compare a 7% studio and a 3% family apartment by simply subtracting four percentage points. Their operating patterns are different.
| ₩100m apartment at ₩600,000 monthly rent | Rent collected | Gross yield before other costs |
|---|---|---|
| 12 occupied months | ₩7.2m | 7.2% |
| 11 occupied months | ₩6.6m | 6.6% |
| 10 occupied months | ₩6.0m | 6.0% |
| 9 occupied months | ₩5.4m | 5.4% |
Do current interest rates make low-yield Daejeon apartments unattractive?
Yes. Low-yield Daejeon apartments are difficult to justify as pure income investments while borrowing costs remain above the yield those properties generate.
The Bank of Korea's latest policy decision put the Base Rate at 3.00%. Its July 2026 banking data show an average rate of 4.27% on newly issued loans and 3.21% on new deposits.
Those numbers create a fairly unforgiving benchmark.
Consider a ₩500 million apartment producing a 3% gross yield. Annual rent is ₩15 million.
If half the purchase is financed at 4.27%, annual interest on ₩250 million is about ₩10.7 million. That leaves only around ₩4.3 million before maintenance, vacancy, taxes and transaction costs.
A 2% apartment looks worse. Even before borrowing, its gross income is below the average rate currently available on new bank deposits.
At 4%, the comparison becomes more interesting, but there still is not much cushion after costs.
A genuine 6% rental starts to give the landlord enough margin to absorb some friction. That is why the high-yield small-unit market deserves more attention these days than expensive apartments yielding 2–3%, unless the buyer has a separate capital-growth thesis.
| Gross apartment yield | Latest average new-loan rate | Spread before costs |
|---|---|---|
| 2% | 4.27% | -2.27 percentage points |
| 3% | 4.27% | -1.27 percentage points |
| 4% | 4.27% | -0.27 percentage points |
| 5% | 4.27% | +0.73 percentage points |
| 6% | 4.27% | +1.73 percentage points |
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Are Daejeon apartment prices helping or hurting rental yields now?
Daejeon's uneven sales market is creating some useful rental opportunities, because rents remain relatively firm while purchase prices outside the strongest neighborhoods have not run away.
The city's apartment jeonse ratio around 71.7% is one piece of evidence. Another is unsold supply.
Public housing statistics showed Daejeon with roughly 2,000 unsold homes in the latest mid-year data, including 2,044 in one recent monthly reading. That was higher than earlier in the year.
At the same time, Yuseong's resale market has been active. Recent transaction data show the district's price per pyeong edging higher, while hundreds of apartments changed hands in individual months.
Dunsan adds another layer. Older prime complexes can reach very high resale prices because reconstruction expectations and school demand are pulling buyers toward specific addresses.
So Daejeon currently gives us several markets at once. Prime Dunsan has expensive resale stock and low yields. Yuseong has deep rental activity and a wide range of prices. Some new-build locations still face unsold inventory.
That fragmentation helps yield investors because there are still places where rent has held up better than the purchase price. It also makes citywide averages much less useful.
Should you chase a 7% Daejeon apartment yield?
A 7% Daejeon apartment yield is worth investigating, but we would assume there is a reason the property is cheap until we prove otherwise.
Skyview City shows that 6–7% gross yields can genuinely appear in reported transactions. So the figure itself is plausible.
The harder question is whether that rent repeats year after year.
A tiny unit may have frequent tenant turnover. The resale market can depend heavily on other investors rather than owner-occupiers. Competing studios and officetels can appear nearby. Building management also becomes important because one poorly run complex can lose tenants quickly even when the neighborhood remains popular.
Capital appreciation is another uncertainty. A ₩100 million apartment collecting ₩600,000 a month can be a good income asset without becoming a good long-term growth asset.
We would check the last dozen actual rental contracts, not one listing; compare those rents with several recent sales of the same floor area; and see how often owners have been able to resell the unit.
The high yield becomes genuinely interesting when all three pieces line up: repeated rents, stable occupancy and an active resale market.
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What gross rental yield should you target in Daejeon?
For a Daejeon apartment bought mainly for rental income, we would currently aim for at least 4% gross and become much more interested above 5%.
A yield below 3% leaves very little income advantage today. New bank deposits average around 3.21%, while new loans average 4.27%. Property also brings brokerage, maintenance, vacancy and resale risk.
Around 3–4%, the deal can still work if the apartment is easy to rent, requires little maintenance and has a strong owner-occupier resale market.
At 4–5%, rental income starts carrying more of the investment case.
The 5–7% range is where Daejeon becomes genuinely interesting for income buyers, particularly around small Yuseong and Bongmyeong apartments. Those properties demand more scrutiny because higher tenant turnover and weaker capital growth can eat into the advantage.
We would accept a 2% Dunsan yield only if we were deliberately buying future price appreciation, school-district scarcity or reconstruction potential.
For a property marketed primarily as a rental investment, 2% is simply too thin these days.
So what rental yield can you actually get on an apartment in Daejeon?
A realistic Daejeon apartment rental yield today is about 2.5–4% for most conventional properties and roughly 5–7% for carefully chosen small rental units.
The recent transaction evidence is consistent enough for us to be confident about that range.
Prime Dunsan family apartments can fall near 2%. Hanmaru is the clearest example, with roughly ₩1 billion prices producing less than ₩2 million in monthly rent unless the tenant deposit is dramatically reduced.
Mainstream apartments sit closer to 3%. Recent Kkumnamu transactions fit that range.
Older small Dunsan stock can move toward 4%, as Bora 2 repeatedly demonstrates.
Very small Bongmyeong apartments are the part of Daejeon where 5–7% is actually achievable from reported sales and rental contracts rather than optimistic listings.
The net yield will be lower. Once we allow for empty periods, brokerage, repairs, taxes and other ownership costs, a strong 6–7% gross unit may leave something closer to 4–5% before financing and personal tax. A conventional 3% apartment can easily end up closer to 2%.
That gives us a fairly simple dividing line. Someone buying Daejeon property mainly for income should concentrate on smaller apartments where the gross yield comfortably clears 4%. Someone buying a prime family apartment at 2–3% needs another reason to own it, because the rent alone does not justify the price right now.
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OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis estimates what rental yield an apartment in Daejeon can realistically generate today. Rather than relying on a citywide average or advertised listings, we compare recent purchase prices with completed monthly-rent contracts and then test those property-level results against apartment size, neighborhood rental depth, tenant deposits, financing conditions and the wider housing market.
Actual reported transactions carry the most weight. Where possible, we compare recent sales with repeated rental contracts for similar floor areas in the same apartment complex, rather than pairing an asking sale price with an advertised rent. Repetition matters here: one unusually cheap sale or one unusually high rent is not enough to establish a reliable yield.
For consistency, the headline yields measure annual monthly rent against the apartment purchase price. Refundable tenant deposits are treated separately because they reduce the amount of owner capital tied up during the lease but are not rental income and have to be repaid.
We then use broader indicators to check whether the property-level results fit the wider market. Rental transaction activity helps us judge tenant-market depth, jeonse-to-sale relationships help us understand how much capital tenants are providing, and price and unsold-housing data help us distinguish durable yield opportunities from temporary pricing anomalies.
Financing is treated as an opportunity-cost test rather than part of the gross-yield calculation. The article uses the Bank of Korea's July 2026 weighted-average rates of 3.21% on new deposits and 4.27% on new loans, while the current Base Rate is 3.00% following the August 27, 2026 monetary-policy decision.
Key sources include the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Real Estate Transaction Price Disclosure System for apartment sale, jeonse and monthly-rent contracts; the Korea Real Estate Board R-ONE system for regional apartment, rental and transaction statistics; the MOLIT unsold new housing series for supply conditions; and the Bank of Korea's August 27, 2026 policy decision together with its July 2026 weighted-average interest-rate release.
The final yield ranges are therefore a synthesis rather than a single published average. Transaction-matched prices and rents determine the core yield estimate; rental volumes and jeonse data test market depth and capital structure; financing rates set the current hurdle; and broader housing statistics help us decide whether the examples are representative enough to support the conclusion.
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