Should SNU housing be this expensive?
I just got an email from SNU saying that my fee for four months of off-campus housing would be 3,600,000 won. That’s pretty expensive. 100,000 is a refundable deposit and 500,000 won is an installation fee (Internet connection, electricity connection, blanket & pillow, kitchen utensils, etc.)? Yeah, that installation fee is more than one month’s rent for me know. That really seems like an unreal price, it’s around $700 a month. That’s twice what I’m paying right now and my current place is pretty expensive for around here. Now, I know that Seoul is an expensive city, but they’re expecting a student to want to pay that much for an apartment?
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That’s pretty unreal. My friend who’s about to finish up at KU is paying barely over 400,000 won a month for his 원룸.
It sounds like SNU’s gonna provide u one of the most expensive housing around. Well, you may find places much cheaper than that. (http://moose1.snu.ac.kr/se_cam/se_cam_ho/se_cam_hob/se_cam_hob.jsp)
In my case, as most korean students do, I live in a one-room(studio) with 5,000,000won of key money and 330,000+30,000(maintenance fee)won of monthly pay. Usually 1,000,000won of key money is equal to 10,000won of monthly pay. So I can live here 380,000+30,000won/month without key money or 370,000+30,000won/month and 1,000,000won of key money, etc.
Tip : If the demand increases, so does the price. After declaration of SNU dormitory, many students who got losing numbers gather around SNU campus looking for the places to stay. Then the price goes up. The declaration of SNU dormitory is on feburary 16th. Hence it is wiser to find ur place before then.
By the way, do you have any friend or person to help you get a place? Just because ur a foreigner, u can possibly pay through the nose! I hope u have someone.
Merry X-mas and hope every price appears to be reasonable!
I honestly don’t know where all the money’s going. It doesn’t make sense especially when they say the room’s only 20 sqm.
(Oh anyway my friend received the email too, but he was quoted 2,900,000w. I’ve yet to receive any replies from them though.)
@Sarah
Yeah, I love how we randomly get assigned places which can vary by like $1000.
@Hyeon soo, Kang
I don’t have anyone in mind to help me right now, but no matter what I’m sure I can find something cheaper than SNU’s housing ㅋㅋㅋ
The best thing to do is pick a few locations and then go to a 부동산 in those locations when you arrive (maybe stay a few days in a hotel while you look). The real estate agent will take you around and show you the places in your price range. Though it depends on the place, going west from campus (toward 신림 etc) will be cheaper and going east from campus (toward 강남) will be more expensive.
With 20,000,000 down, I pay 550,000 per month in one of the more ‘expensive’ areas, though my place is quite humble. You can find ‘Full option’ (furnished)places for 7,000,000 down and 7,000,000 per month on average (or possibly cheaper). There is a great deal of variation, partly depending on the individual landlords and their conceptions of what their places are worth… as well as whether the landlord owes money on the building or owns it outright etc etc… You can cheaper places than what I’ve described, but they aren’t always conveniently located (a ten-minute versus a twenty-minute walk to the subway is a huge difference over time).
@joseph
Please tell me it was 2,000,000 down
No ㅠㅠ, but honestly most people don’t seem to want more than 5,000,000 these days. It is said to be 10,000 per 1,000,000, but many renters prefer the monthly rates. But I did mean 700,000 down and 700,000 per month… basically just like renting monthly… sorry about that.
P.S. Thanks for posting those notes on Business Korean (Yonsei recently published a good text, but before that sources were hard to find). Where did you get that stuff if you’ve never been to Korea?? Was your teacher in living in North America?
@joseph
I took the business Korean class while I was still at BYU, which has a full Korean BS program.
I see. Thanks.
Ah so those huge rent numbers (5M, etc) are the uh… man I forgot the Korean word. The yearly rent right? Deposit a bunch of money, don’t pay rent (or apparently a small amount) and then get back your deposit at the end of the lease? Sounds like a better deal than I thought if you find a decent place. I was estimating my cost for the year to be around $8000 tops, including utilities. And of course that’s not taking into account the exchange rate.
If you have a large chunk of cash (100,000,000 원 give or take), you can basically live rent free in a small but nice place. A 5,000,000 deposit (‘key money’) will save you 50,000 per month off your monthly rent in theory (the key money is not per year; it is perpetual until you move out… so if you stay and the landlord raises the rent by 50,000 per month the second year, you have lost your monthly deducton and would have to negotiate adding another 5,000,000 to the earlier key money to cover the rent increase); I’m saving 200,000 per month in theory with the 20,000,000 (though many places have maintenance or other fees… some are 50,000 per month; some 150,000 per month or more if they have laundry services and health facilities etc). With key money, you are simply giving up the interest that a given sum would accrue and letting the landlord invest it instead. There are many possibilities, and the system is interesting and fairly flexible. The good thing is that utilities are dirt cheap, and daily living expenses (food, transportation) in Seoul are as well.
It sounds both confusing AND convenient at the same time. Luckily I’ve got enough Korean friends in the Seoul area that I think I should be able to get a good deal/nice place/whatever when I’m there. Or I could save $7000 and live in a dorm, but that’s no fun. lol