Housing permits and construction starts recorded in Seoul from January to July this year were more than 30 percent above the three-year average, the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported.

A permit means a project has cleared administrative procedure; a start means work has actually begun. That both rose together is read as a signal that activity moved beyond paper plans to the ground.

Two to three years usually pass between groundbreaking and occupancy, however. Volume added this year would translate into habitable housing around 2028, which is why the effect on the current rental market is described as limited.

Completions are the figure to read alongside supply indicators. Even with permits and starts rising, supply as experienced does not improve unless completions follow. Higher material and financing costs have delayed work after groundbreaking in past cases.

For Chinese-community and other foreign tenants in Seoul, the location and type of new supply is what matters, since commuting and rent levels differ sharply between inner-city redevelopment and new building on the periphery.

The government and the Seoul metropolitan authorities have presented shorter redevelopment procedures and higher-density inner-city development as instruments for expanding supply. These figures are read as the first stretch in which that direction shows up in statistics, though one year of data is too little to declare a trend.