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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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trevorcollins
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 6:53 am Post subject: Websites for apartments in Seoul |
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| English Spectrum used to have a huge section on this, but now that it's gone, where's the best place to look online....? |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 8:38 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, accommodations was one of the few things that ES did well. That and part-time jobs.
You might try the Korea Times: http://times.hankooki.com/community/bbs/wwwboardlist.php?tablename=market
Korea Herald online probably has something similar.
The Buy/Sell/Trade Forum here on Dave's never has much.
How big, how many rooms, what area, what rent/deposit? Let me know and I can do a quick search of the big Korean budongsan sites. |
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trevorcollins
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2005 8:55 am Post subject: |
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Thanks, it's more a hypothetical thing for later rather than anything specific now.
Worknplay has a small rental forum which probably will start to pick up ES's slack over the next few months.
Thx again. |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 1:35 am Post subject: |
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Arthur Choi of Eden Realty is a licensed realtor in Noksapyeong/Itaewon and found what we were looking for in an hour. Negotiated with the landlord on our behalf for a nice cut in the key money and rent (there's always room for bargaining!) He speaks good English as he's used to dealing with USFK personnel. We had a done deal in a couple of hours. It was great.
He's also liaised with the landlord whenever we've needed things fixed.
His website where you can view what's currently available is in English:
www.edenrealty.co.kr |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 2:30 am Post subject: |
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| canuckistan wrote: |
Arthur Choi of Eden Realty is a licensed realtor in Noksapyeong/Itaewon and found what we were looking for in an hour...
We had a done deal in a couple of hours. It was great...
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You're serious. One hour?  I'm positively staggered. That's shorter than a trip to the dentist. I 've spent more time than that picking out neckties I might wear only 20 times in my life. But a home?? My own "personal best" was about a week, but that was only because I was under the gun.
So, how many places were you able to see in one hour? Had you seen anything previously? You must have. I think even if I found the home of my dreams in the first 10 minutes of my search, and it was renting for a song, I'd still want to give myself more than an hour's survey of the market.
Mystifying. |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:02 am Post subject: |
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| JongnoGuru wrote: |
| canuckistan wrote: |
Arthur Choi of Eden Realty is a licensed realtor in Noksapyeong/Itaewon and found what we were looking for in an hour...
We had a done deal in a couple of hours. It was great...
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You're serious. One hour? I'm positively staggered. That's shorter than a trip to the dentist. I 've spent more time than that picking out neckties I might wear only 20 times in my life. But a home?? My own "personal best" was about a week, but that was only because I was under the gun.
So, how many places were you able to see in one hour? Had you seen anything previously? You must have. I think even if I found the home of my dreams in the first 10 minutes of my search, and it was renting for a song, I'd still want to give myself more than an hour's survey of the market.
Mystifying. |
I guess we were lucky, right place at the right time! It was the first apt we looked at with this realtor. We just wandered into his office. He gave a lot better service than the others we went to see down the road who seemed constantly busy on the phone. We didn't have a lot of time. We wanted an apt with a rooftop, lots of barbeque space and a nice view and he got right on it. Pulled out his list and there it was, right in the neighbourhood. Saw it, loved it, took it.
Very unmessy.  |
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trevorcollins
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 3:30 am Post subject: |
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| canuckistan wrote: |
Arthur Choi of Eden Realty is a licensed realtor in Noksapyeong/Itaewon and found what we were looking for in an hour. Negotiated with the landlord on our behalf for a nice cut in the key money and rent (there's always room for bargaining!) He speaks good English as he's used to dealing with USFK personnel. We had a done deal in a couple of hours. It was great.
He's also liaised with the landlord whenever we've needed things fixed.
His website where you can view what's currently available is in English:
www.edenrealty.co.kr |
Haha...started a thread last night about some of the places on his website.....
http://expatinkorea.com/expat/viewtopic.php?t=3189
(caution contains foul language)
...but hey, at least the guy is honest about what he's renting out. I'll give him credit for that. |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:20 am Post subject: |
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First of all, let me say this guy's website is a winner. The photos, his descriptions and his honesty .... very refreshing.
But I'm not sure what I'm looking at in some of those pix.... 
Canuckistan, I've never seen a Korean apartment where residents cooked or partied on the rooftop. Or were even really allowed up there except for an angry smoke in the middle of a noisy domestic dispute. So, is your place an apartment, or what Koreans would call a "villa" or a "ta-sey-dae"? In other words, elevators or stairs?
As for all the laughter and scowling that one place (100,000 won/month) has provoked here (or at some other site), I gotta tell ya, there was a time I would have killed for that place. And the one where you've got to share the place with the 72-yr-old ajosshi (hey, it is two rooms, right?) well.... I'd take that over the 40-yr-old flatulent & always-drunk cab driver I had to share a small room with for several months. |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:44 am Post subject: |
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Not a chance. The place you've linked rents for 1,500,000 won/month, with a 3,000,000 won deposit. What this landlord has done, without saying so, is to go Western. He's set his rent and is asking "1st & last" as a deposit, in effect. A deposit as small as 3 million won has no real significance beyond what it does in the West -- security. The interest that another 3 million won in deposit would earn is nothing. (3 mil. @ 4% = 120,000 won per year)
Today's standard rent/deposit calculation: 10 million won deposit = 100,000 won in monthly rent. So, if you wanted to reduce your rent from 1.5 million won to 750,000 won, you'd have to pony up a deposit of 75 million won. That assumes, of course, that the landlord wants a whopping deposit that he must repay, rather than a higher monthly rent he can keep. Most landlords do not.
Last edited by JongnoGuru on Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:11 am; edited 1 time in total |
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trevorcollins
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 4:57 am Post subject: |
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Looks like my place after my Mom's come over to visit and cleaned up.
Jesus, you'd think they'd at least have taken the two minutes to sweep all the crap off the floor and into the other room, hey...? |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:09 am Post subject: |
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I know, aren't some of those pics a pisser? 
We have stairs but it's definetly not a villa. The apt is basically on the roof, hence the great views, light, and roof space--which is not shared.
There's a 2nd level to the roof top as well--our apt rooftop!
Barbeques on either level. Fabulous, except with the dirty Seoul air you have to pull out the waterhose before a party. |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 5:19 am Post subject: |
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| JongnoGuru wrote: |
Not a chance. The place you've linked rents for 1,500,000 won/month, with a 3,000,000 won deposit. What this landlord has done, without saying so, is to go Western. He's set his rent and is asking "1st & last" as a deposit, in effect. A deposit as small as 3 million won has no real significance beyond what it does in the West -- security. The interest that another 3 million won in deposit would earn is nothing. (3 mil. @ 4% = 120,000 won?)
Today's standard rent/deposit calculation: 10 million won deposit = 100,000 won in monthly rent. So, if you wanted to reduce your rent from 1.5 million won to 750,000 won, you'd have to pony up a deposit of 75 million won. That assumes, of course, that the landlord wants a whopping deposit that he must repay, rather than a higher monthly rent he can keep. Most landlords do not. |
I think the Itaewon area is different from a lot of other places to live. It's a real mixed bag here. One place we looked at last year we offered to crank the key money by almost double for an almost 1/2 cut in the rent and the landlord was willing to deal. We didn't pursue it though because we found the apt was too dark. Prices have gone down since then too.
It all depends on the landlord I guess. |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Fri Feb 25, 2005 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| canuckistan wrote: |
I think the Itaewon area is different from a lot of other places to live. It's a real mixed bag here. One place we looked at last year we offered to crank the key money by almost double for an almost 1/2 cut in the rent and the landlord was willing to deal. We didn't pursue it though because we found the apt was too dark. Prices have gone down since then too.
It all depends on the landlord I guess. |
I lived in & around Itaewon myself for several years. The primary differences between the rental market there and elsewhere are:
-- a greater percentage of ex-pats at all income levels (though US military base relocation/redevelopment could turn the area into a 2nd-fiddle "Gangnam of the North", dislocating many on the lower rungs);
-- more "pure rent" and "rent in advance" (kkal-sey) arrangements because of the higher number of ex-pats working for foreign employers who pay for housing that way;
-- more sodomy at the high and low extremes of the market, with high-enders overpaying for mediocrity and low-enders being offered kennels; and,
-- more hard-nosed landlords who know exactly what they're doing.
From the cliffs of Sogwuipo (southern Jeju) to the DMZ, the deposit/rent tradeoff is 10 million won/100,000 won. (used to be 5 mil./100k back when kerb market rates were 18%) Why so standardised? How do landlords, realtors (& most tenants) all happen to know this formula? Why can't Itaewon be an exception? Because bank interest rates are the same for everyone in Korea wherever they live, Itaewon landlords included.
This is not to say there is no situation where doubling the deposit will cut the rent in half, though here's an example of what such a situation would probably look like:
Monthly Rent: 400,000 won
Key Money: 20,000,000 won
So, if you added another 20 mil. to the deposit, that would reduce the rent by 200,000 won to 200,000 won.
But just as there are four-leaf clovers, there may well be exceptions out there. If the earlier hypothetical were true -- that a landlord would cut a 1.5 mil. won rent in half in exchange for another 3 mil. won in deposit, somebody please PM me!! I'll take the place myself!
I wouldn't actually live there. Wouldn't have to. I'd just pay the 6 mil. won deposit, sub-let the place to someone else for anywhere from 1 mil. to 1.5 mil./month, and pay the landlord his 750,000 won/month. I'd be banking 250,000 won ~ 750,000 won a month for doing... well, nothing, really. In a year I'll make 3 million ~ 9 million won for doing... nothing. And I'll only be out 240,000 won in lost interest on that 6 mil. won deposit. If I thought there were more than two such flukes in the entire Yongsan-gu rental market, it might be worth my while to set up shop down there. But no... my conscience would not permit me to take advantage of the feebleminded like that. (or would it?  ) |
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