How to rent a room or an apartment in South Korea? - Chapter 1

I would like to explain about the way to rent a room or an apartment in South Korea. If you got a chance to live in South Korea, you would need to know some essential things for a survival. I think this is the first chapter before buying the flight ticket for South Korea. 

 

"How to rent a room or an apartment in South Korea?"

 

Korean prefers to meet the real estate agents when they rent a room or an apartment. The real estate agents are so-called "Budongsan" in Korean.

Four real estate agents in the apartment complexs which is a screenshot from naver street view

Five real estate agents in the apartment complexs which is a screenshot from naver street view

Every city of South Korea has lots of "Budongsan". They have their own lists near their markets. However, you might need this when you are not in South Korea. Therefore, I recommend you to search the specific website related to the real estates. 

The followings are the popular websites in South Korea. Unfortunately, these sites are only in Korean. You can translate the website via Chrome. If you can read Korean, it would be great. 

 

1) Zigbang ( only in Korean)

https://www.zigbang.com/

No.1 부동산 앱, 직방

 

2) Naver Budongsan website( only in Korean)

https://land.naver.com/

네이버 부동산

3) Dabang ( only in Korean )

https://www.dabangapp.com/

부동산 필수 앱 다방

4) Ziptoss ( only in Korean & in App )

https://ziptoss.com/

집토스 직영부동산

5) Airbnb ( Korean & English )

https://www.airbnb.co.kr/?tab_id=home_tab&refinement_paths%5B%5D=%2Fhomes&search_mode=flex_destinations_search&flexible_trip_lengths%5B%5D=one_week&location_search=MIN_MAP_BOUNDS&price_filter_input_type=0&price_filter_num_nights=5&category_tag=Tag%3A8542&search_type=category_change 

에어비앤비: 휴가용 임대 숙소, 통나무집, 비치 하우스, 독특한 숙소 및 체험

Using above sites, you will be familar to the reasonable rent fee and concepts. To make efficient searching on above sites, you have to know below concepts. 

 

In South Korea, there are three differents concepts related to real estates. 

 

1. Buy a room or an apartment or a house (매매 : Maemae in Korean )

 

2. Rent a room or an apartment or a house with huge deposit and without monthly rent fee ( 전세 : Jeonsae in Korean )

As I know until now, only south korean has this concept. When you move out the room, you can get back the huge deposit from the house owner. Lots of foreigners feel "Can I rent a room for free?" The house owner can use your huge deposit for the other investment. Unfortunately, Jeonsae might disappear South Korea in near future due to high interest in banks and crazy or over-valued house price.

.

3. Rent a room or an apartment or a house with small deposit and monthly rent fee ( 월세 : Wolsae in Korean )

 

In step 2, I will handle above three concepts in details and the way to search in the website.