Korean Job Discussion Forums

[BTM]

So this school in Gangnam that wants to hire me (pretty desperately, it would seem) has told me that they'll budget me and my wife 110,000,000 to 115,000,000 won as key money to find ourselves a house, as all the ones they showed us today, we hated (pink! paint!, dim, dirty, old, etc).

My wife's Korean, and she's going to get on the net and start hunting as soon as I give up the hotseat here, but I thought I'd ask the collected wisdom of the forum what they reckon.

We've been living in a brand new 25(ish) pyung villa (modern, bright, clean, almost western, built-ins by golly) for the past while out in Gunpo, courtesy of my old job, but 3 hours commute just ain't gonna cut it, so we want to be closer in towards Gangnam, or actually there. The deposit here was 80 mill.

Today was pretty damn discouraging with these medieval torture chambers the budongsans were showing us today....You think we'll be able to find something nice, reasonably-sized, newish for that? And where would you recommend looking, that's on the transit grid? Any tips or tricks on where to look, nice neighourhoods, etc? We've never tried looking at real estate in the Big Smoke itself, and though I trust the Mrs to pull through, I always like to have as much info as possible on hand...

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer, folks, in-thread or via PM.

[BTM]

The thing that freaks me out is that I could buy a 4-bedroom lakefront house for that amount of moolah, in my Canuckistan hometown. Probably have enough left over for a pick-me-up truck too!

[kimcheeking]

Me and my wife just put down 123,000,000 won for a 24 pyoung apartment next to Ewha front gate. No rent. We moved in on Monday.

We used the internet as well but the prices were off and selection was low compared to actually going to the location you want and going to a local budongsan.

My wifes sister runs a budong-san and gave some advice. Go to the biggest one you can find, try to avoid ones run by old people as they dont' always know all the rules or even abide by them.

[BTM]

How old is the apartment, KCK? Is it an 'apart' or a 'villa'? From what I've been seeing, anything older than about 3 or 4 years tends to be the plastic-floor, psychedelic-wallpaper, layers of green-and-pink paint, dim-and-nasty bathroom, perfunctory-kitchen kind of thing... or are there exceptions?

I'm just ridiculously picky when it comes to housing, which hasn't been a problem so far, but I'm feeling a bit discouraged after today...

Anybody out there within hand-grenade distance of central Gangnam that really loves their neighbourhood?

[little mixed girl]

.....

[kimcheeking]

[Dan]

an apartment in Gangnam? you're going to pay through the nose no matter where you go I think.

[BTM]

Well, the wife found some absolutely gorgeous places, brand new, in our price range (no monthly rent), in the area (between Gangnam-yuk and Samsung-dong) on the net last night - including a couple of beatiful lofts! - now we've got to go have a look and see if any of them are available. Wish us luck!

[kangnamdragon]

My studio in Kangnam (one room) has a 50,000,00 won key money deposit, and it is not very modern.

[itaewonguy]

dude.. did you say the school is going to give you 120million won>?????
HUH!!!


why would a school do that????

100.000 dollars!!! man if this is true..
do this....
find an apartment.. put down 20-30 million won.. and pay monthly rent of 500.000 won.. with the other 80 - 100million invest it in long term stocks.. take them out in 1 year make yourself a NICE profit of 15% off them risk free,.,. collect the profit...
you could make more than 15% if you know what your doing doing to.
thats just simple risk free for dummies investing.. you invst in some real stocks you will clean up RISK FREE!! Im not talking about futures, or stock trading..long term bonds etc... loan the money etc...
damn,.,. HAKWON giving away 120million won hahhaha
DUDE!! dont give that money to someone else if the school is going to give it to you!!!

[kimcheeking]

Probably the school will negotiate the contract for the house. BTM will never see the money.

Can you imagine, a business giving 120,000,000 won to an employee, I think not.

[Gwangjuboy]

120,000,000 won? You wouldn't get anything in London for that. Wouldn't even get a garden shed! In my city back in the UK, property is more expensive than Seoul. And that's Derby (2 hours from London.) In my city you would be looking at the lower end of the market for that money. I still don't understand how they work out that Seoul is the 8th most expensive city in the world! Even relative to income it's a pretty cheap place to live.

[kimcheeking]

The 120 million is rent not buying.

[Gwangjuboy]

Renting in the UK is even more expensive than buying a property outright if you consider how much rent costs in comparison to a mortgage per month. I hear that the opposite is true over here. My girlfriend's father owns a budongsan(used to live in Seoul last year.) in Kwangju and he told me that I could expect to find a decent place in seoul for 150,000 US. For the same in London you are looking at the ghettos!

[BTM]