Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jiberish]

In a about a month after the wedding I am moving back to Korea with my future wife. Now my biggest concern is getting an apartment. My misses wants to live in song-pa. Fair enough it seemed like a nice place BUT I have no idea how much an apartment there costs. So I had a look on the internet at few sites such as
www.oneroom.com

and I just don't know what to believe. You see pictures of the same apartment however one claims its realsize is 20 pyong and the next listing with the same pictures states its 12 pyong. The misses said that the real estate market moves to fast to put stuff on the net. But still there are soooo many listing some need to be true. Anyway does anyone actually know what the average price for a good one living one bedroom apartment would go for that is about 20-25 pyong in actual size. Wolse and Jonse prices would be nice too

I can't go into it blind like she says we need to. I cant just wait and then find out once I go there I need more money for the key deposit. Also im not too keen about staying with her parents while we find a place. Just married and needing to move in with her parents I feel I would have already failed at life. I have about 25k total funds at the moment. Which needs to pay for key money, furniture, rent while we find jobs etc. But if jonse is cheap I can possibly get a loan of 100k.

Any info would be appreciated

[jiberish]

i hear a cricket symphany

[Korussian]

It's never a good idea to do things remotely when they relate to Korea - there are too many lies, exaggerations, and "oh I forgot to mention"s. It's for that reason that pragmatic Korean job-seekers always insist on speaking with a previous foreign teacher before signing a contract.

The simple fact is, phoning it in from abroad, you are likely to hear some hilariously big lies about the price or size of the apartments you're seeing. They might quote you a price over the phone/email, and then mention the extra fees that almost double it on your arrival.

In my opinion, if it's a requirement for you to find an apartment before getting here yourself (the latter is by far the preferred method), your best bet is to find a foreigner (or maybe an already-known Korean) on the ground who you can, at minimum, semi-trust to do the legwork for you.

I suggest you ask a member of your future family or spend a few bucks to hire a foreigner in Korea (here or Craigslist?) who will go apartment hunting as your agent, and will send back photos, measurements, and honest appraisals of every place they visit, as well as what they thought of the owner and maybe even a copy of the rental agreement to get a sense of all of the fees and deposits.

You won't necessarily be able to rely on your rental agreement even after the owner (landlord) signs it, so you should make sure the owner is trust-worthy in the absence of a written agreement. Otherwise, he'll just disregard any written agreement if/when his business/personal circumstances change, and your apartment price or other fees will suddenly go up.

That said, make sure you can trust any foreigner you hire as well, since we teachers in Korea can be just as sketchy as the locals sometimes ;)