My neighbourhood - 1

When you walk around the street of Seoul, or even shops in your neighbourhood, you sure will not miss out this types of "square-shaped" estate / house lists.

매매 (賣買) sale and purchase / trade
for villa, apartment or even land.

This is the way we find a new house if we want to move to another place. We need to walk around that area to have a look at the prices and houses available there. Normally the house basic data is shown outside the window, like the price, size of the house, numbers of room, and etc.

There is also another way to look for house available or sell your house without going to the real estate. It can save some money but the possibility to find someone to move in your house is smaller if your area is not so popular. You can put on the advertisements yourself on a public notice board like market, or the lamp posts all around your area! (You can see the advertisements of tuition actually on the lamp posts)

The sale and purchase way of house is different from our country. We call it rental since we cannot own the house. Koreans rent the house either by paying monthly or in the full amount. You will save more if you can pay in the full amount when you first move in, but that's not a small amount. The period of contract is normally for 2 years. After 2 years, the owner will decide whether to increase or decrease the rental fee. (Normally it is increased because the Korean living cost is getting higher and higher!)

Anyway, the process of finding a house in Korea is efficient! When you confirm that you like the house, you just need to confirm the moving date with the present house rentee, and then sign the contract, and arrange your moving and transfer the money on the day you move in! All things can be solved within a few days! They are really 빨리빨리!

Tips for moving house:

1. find the house with a nice owner so that you can get better service when something need to be fixed for the house
2. find the house which is quite new because the old house always have more inconvenience, like gas supply and the wall (applied to rural area)
3. if you want to have an air-conditioner in your house, ask the owner first because it involves making a hole to the mirror or the wall of the house

We have been moving house 3 times for the last 4 years. The house in Seoul area is extremely expensive but convenient as it has good transportation system. Houses out of Seoul are cheaper but still expensive if there is a subway around.
In short, survey properly and get some advice from Korean friends before you move in a house, it's better to get them with you when you visit the house for the first time, especially ajumma friends. They are more experienced and can negotiate for you.