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Real Reality
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 3:31 am Post subject: Seoul World's 7th Expensive City |
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Seoul was ranked as the world's seventh most expensive city to live in out of 144 major cities worldwide this year, a global human resources consultancy reported on Sunday. The survey measures the comparative cost of over 200 items of 144 cities, including housing, food, clothing and household goods, together with transportation and entertainment.
Mercer's survey for 2004 also showed that in the Asia-pacific region, Seoul is the fourth expensive city to live after Tokyo, Osaka and Hong Kong.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200406/kt2004061315544210160.htm |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 3:37 am Post subject: |
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| Korea would be 109th or so if you subtract the housing costs which don't exist for many ESLers in Seoul. Unless prices for consumer goods are way more expensive there than Busan, where I shop regularly and am always surprised at how little I pay, and where I most often overestimate the prices of things. |
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Real Reality
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 3:49 am Post subject: |
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VanIslander wrote,
"Korea would be 109th or so if you subtract the housing costs which don't exist for many ESLers in Seoul."
How good are the housing conditions for most "ESLers" in Seoul or Busan?
Last edited by Real Reality on Sun Jun 13, 2004 3:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Zyzyfer
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: who, what, where, when, why, how?
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 3:55 am Post subject: |
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| Yea, the housing might even be decent if you're here short-term, but if you plan to settle down here, there's no way in hell that school-offered housing would cut it. |
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Real Reality
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 3:59 am Post subject: |
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| The university or company provides a "low-rent" dorm style room for the "ESLers." "ESLers" can take good care of their families in those rooms. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 4:00 am Post subject: |
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Is the real reality always negative?
| Real Reality wrote: |
| How good are those housing conditions for most "ESLers" in Seoul or Busan? |
I only have a couple of experiences to go on in terms of quality but... Isn't it beside the point? If you aren't paying for rent, then your costs plummet. |
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Real Reality
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 4:04 am Post subject: |
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The "ESLer" gets shown the room information from the employer.
"Here is an extra-large walk in closet for your room. Do not worry you only have to pay for utilities and a monthly maintenance fee." |
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royjones
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Location: post count: 512
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 5:31 am Post subject: |
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| what is up with that 20,000won a month cleaning fee.. I have NEVER seen anyone cleaning up the stairways... hmmm.. |
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kangnamdragon
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Kangnam, Seoul, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 5:37 am Post subject: |
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| royjones wrote: |
| what is up with that 20,000won a month cleaning fee.. I have NEVER seen anyone cleaning up the stairways... hmmm.. |
It also pays for the electricity for the outside lights. Unless your stairs are full of dirt and there is trash around the outside of the apartment, someone probably is cleaning. |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:03 am Post subject: yes |
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The onyl things I see that are really expensive around here are housing (buying one) and gasoline.
I don't believe that for one second. |
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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:45 am Post subject: |
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| The survey has it's flaws. It is a barometer for employers to use when deciding how much allwance they should allow their employess to have when on overseas business trips. It might look at the cost of a meal in TGI's, a round of drinks in some up-market bars in Hongdae, and the best hotels. But it won't examine the cost of galbi in the hyopthetical soup kitchen. It assumes that employees on these overseas business trips won't be living in the same way as your average ESL teacher. To put it a better way, if one was to actually live in New York, Paris, or London, you would actually get through a lot more money than you would in Seoul. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:54 am Post subject: |
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| Gwangjuboy wrote: |
| It might look at the cost of a meal in TGI's, a round of drinks in some up-market bars in Hongdae, and the best hotels. It assumes that employees on these overseas business trips won't be living in the same way as your average ESL teacher. |
Nor apparently do they calculate based on "when in Rome, do what the Romans do", which is too bad because Korean dishes and soju would be a better experience for most travellers than second-rate, over-priced Western restaurants, and some ondol heating in a yogwan would be good for one's back. Okay, maybe your average business traveller isn't at all like tourists or globetrotters.
For the living of us ESLers I cannot believe it's the seventh most expensive when I constantly face cheap prices compared to Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, to name three from my home country alone. |
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Mankind
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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Imagine if people read things and studied instead just blurted?
| Quote: |
| The survey, drawn up twice a year, ranks cost of living for foreign workers, not local residents, and is used primarily to determine pay for expatriate employees. |
RR is right on this time. Live in some other places people. Seoul is insanely expensive.
| Quote: |
| Korea would be 109th or so if you subtract the housing costs which don't exist for many ESLers in Seoul. |
Not all of us are single people, happy to live in a hovel just so we can be away from mom and dad. To just ignore housing prices is stupid. Well I could live right next to Centeral Park if the housing costs weren't so high. And I'd much rather shop in the West for grocereis than Korea. I'd be much further ahead.
So you think it's only housing?
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spending increased...by a 14.6 percent rise in dining-out costs.
Spending on food and daily necessities, which accounts for slightly more than a quarter of household expenditures
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25% of household spending is food? That doesn't sound very cheap to me.
And just a side note for all those that don't think we should be asking for money during these troubled economic times.
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| Education spending increased the most, up 18.3 percent on-year in the first quarter |
Are you getting part of that extra 18.3% That'd be a pretty damn big raise for a lot of people
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/archives/result_contents.asp?id=200406090030&query=debt
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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I previously wrote: "Korea would be 109th or so if you subtract the housing costs which don't exist for many ESLers in Seoul."
| Mankind wrote: |
| Not all of us are single people, happy to live in a hovel just so we can be away from mom and dad. |
Of course.
BTW, the general guideline in America and Canada is 33% of your wage for your housing costs. That'd be over 600,000 won/month (for a standard 2.0 mill contract), an incredible amount worthy of a great apartment in Busan. But, of course, Seoul is probably very different. Is that figure high or low for a nice place in Seoul?
I have rented my own apartment in Toronto and Windsor, Canada and have paid $750 and $600 respectively for a small one bedroom apartment. I hear it's now $1,000 a month for a not even nice apartment in Toronto these days. And it's exactly the housing costs that scares me most about my beloved Vancouver.
To get back to the main point: I think Gwangjuboy has the right perspective on the survey's significance: "It might look at the cost of a meal in TGI's, a round of drinks in some up-market bars in Hongdae, and the best hotels."
Not directly relevant to most of the ESLers in Seoul, is it? |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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| VanIslander wrote: |
BTW, the general guideline in America and Canada is 33% of your wage for your housing costs. That'd be over 600,000 won/month (for a standard 2.0 mill contract), an incredible amount worthy of a great apartment in Busan. But, of course, Seoul is probably very different. Is that figure high or low for a nice place in Seoul?
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I was told that in Sadang area- south of the river, a 1 bedroom slum ( the size of my current spare room) would go for around 600,000 or so. It all depends on the neighborhood. Sadang- semi prestigous.
Now I live in the suburbs and have a two bedroom apartment that's also school provided  . |
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