House Hunting Part 1

This past Saturday (Jan. 9th), I went to Siheung to look at apartments and neighborhoods.  I had some vague ideas about where I wanted to be in Siheung and this first round of apartments helped me further decide where I want to be.  Here is the area that I am looking at for housing:

Originally, I wanted to be closer to the subway station but I looked at three that were about a 3 minute walk from the subway, and decided against that.  Looking at the apartments, I noticed that they were almost all studios, which means that they will be full of students.  This means that it will be loud and I don't really want to live that close to my students.  Obviously, I understand that I will live near students, it is a college town after all but this area was definitely going to be more college students than other areas that I looked at.

In addition to the three apartments near the subway, I also looked at three apartments that were in the middle between the subway and my school.  These seemed more family oriented areas, and a lot more relaxed.  I actually liked this area the best of the two that I looked at and think it is where I would like to end up.  If not a little closer to the school.

Now, I looked at a total of six apartments on Saturday, all studios that were either newly renovated or brand new.  However, because of this, they were extremely small.  I did see two that had space but they were in a location that I did not like (too student oriented).  This got me to think about what I am looking at for an apartment.  I want space and light.  Those are the big things for me, so I may have to change what I am looking for because the studios will not give me the space.  So, next time I go house hunting I will be looking at 1.5 room and 2 room apartments (1.5 room = 1 bedroom with kitchen and living room together; 2 room = 2 bedrooms with living room and kitchen).  I am hoping to find a nice 1.5 room apartment because I don't really need a 2 room apartment because it is so big but we will see what happens.  The realtors know what I am looking for and hopefully I can find something in my budget (which I was told is high, so "I must be making a lot of money because I am willing to spend so much").

In addition to changing from looking at studios to looking for a one bedroom apartment, I also was told to wait to look.  The city I am moving to is small and therefore different from the Seoul market.  In Seoul, you have to look for apartments at least 1 month in advance to get what you are looking for.  The three realtors in Siheung told us that they do not really have the inventory for Feb. 27th or Feb. 28th move ins.  So, instead of looking for housing this month and getting everything out of the way, I will now be looking for housing about 10 days before I have to move.  Which is super scary for me but this is Korea and this is how so many things work.  So last minute at times.  For now, I will wait and think about things before I go back for my apartment hung on Feb. 13th.  Hopefully I can find something awesome on that day, so I do not have to go back on Feb. 20th.  Here is hoping and I will keep you all posted on this process.  This apparently short process.

What kind of apartment do I want?

I am sure many of you are asking or wondering what kind of apartment I will be looking for.  Right now, I am extremely lucky with my apartment.  It has beautiful light, and a great view of the river and mountains.  It is also a very nice spacious one room, with a western style shower.  It really is ideal for me.  However, I do not think I will get something like this in my new location, because of the location.

So, what am I looking for.  Well, depending on rent, I would like a one bedroom apartment, a spacious loft-studio or studio apartment.  Either would be okay with me.  I will be making enough to cover the rent, and not have to worry about anything.  So that should not be an issue.  The issue arises with finding such a place in the correct location.  I want natural light, because I don't like the "typical" Korean housing, where there is a veranda, with closed doors to the outside windows.  Usually these windows on the inside are blocked and not see through.  If they looked like the one below, I would not mind having a veranda, but most look like the second photo and that is now what I want because I want a lot of natural light.

On top of natural light, I would like a little more space.  I have a dog, and living in a small space would not be good for her.  Yes, she is lazy and doesn't do a lot but it would not be good for either of us.  So, I would like something on the bigger side, for a small apartment.  Now, when I say small, compared to America, it is really small.  However, for me and Trixie it is big enough.

Natural light and space are the two big things for me when I will be apartment hunting.  However, there are some smaller things that I will also be looking for but are not necessarily deal breakers.  I would love if appliances came with the apartment.  In Korea, most homes do not come with anything, no air conditioner, fridge, washing machine, etc.  So, it would be nice if the apartment I decide on has these things.  However, if they do not have all of them, I can always buy one online secondhand.  So they are not deal breakers.  In addition to appliances, I would like a more western style bathroom.  Meaning the shower is separate from the toilet.  In Korea, most bathrooms have the shower-head connected to the faucet and the entire bathroom gets wet (an example follows).  I am not a huge fan of this and would like a more separate bathroom style, but again this is not necessary.

In addition, I am hoping to get a newer building or one that has been renovated recently.  Older buildings tend to have mold problems and are difficult to heat.  There are really just a lot of issues with older buildings in general.  So I would like something a little newer.  

In the end we will see what happens.  I am hopeful but also realistic about things.  This is Korea after all and I have a dog.  So that limits a lot of options for me.  Here is hoping!

Key Money

Renting an apartment in Korea is a lot different from renting an apartment in America.  I have known of these differences for a long time, but have never actually had to deal with them because I had housing provided by my school.  However, for the first time, I will have to deal with the real-estate market in Korea because my new work does not allow dogs in the housing, so I opted out of housing and will find my own.

Now the first BIG (and I mean BIG!) hurdle to overcome is the deposit for an apartment in Korea.  In America, a deposit on an apartment is usually one months rent, and first month down.  Korea is so very different.  They have a system called key money here.  Key money is where you place a huge deposit on the apartment you are renting and the landlord uses that money and invests it or puts it in savings.  You get this money back but you are essentially paying a years worth of rent on a place in most cases.

There are two different types of key money in Korea, one where you pay almost the entire cost of the house (think tens of thousands of dollars) and practically live rent free, and one where you pay a large sum and the rent goes down with how much you put down at the start.  The first one is extremely hard for foreigners to do because it is such a large amount to put down, but it is an option here.  One I will not be using because those tens of thousands of dollars would pay off my student loans, and ain't nobody got time for that.  Bwhaha.  I will be doing the second form of key money.

The second form of key money, is where you put down a substantial amount of money and the more you put down, the more likely, your landlord is to decrease the rent of the apartment.  Most Koreans pay around 10,000,000 won (about $10,000) for a nice apartment, with some going even higher.  Most people say not to go below 5,000,000 won (about $5,000), because you are getting into bad apartment territory.  Though I have seen apartments with key money deposits of 3,000,000 won (about $3,000) but those apartments are not that nice and usually old.

I know someone who has three different apartments, that he rents out for airbnb, but he is renting them to begin with.  He told me that each deposit was 10,000,000 won and had he put down more the 800,000 won (about $800) rent would have decreased.  However, these apartments are really nice, and in a really popular area in Seoul.  The farther away you get from Seoul the more you get for your money, so the 5,000,000 won deposit can get you a nicer apartment.

Unfortunately for me, I only have a small amount for key money.  I will only be able to come up with 5,000,000 won for my deposit.  However, I am lucky because my school is outside of Seoul enough that this should not be too much of an issue.  It is just such a different process compared to America, and something that I am going to have to deal with.

Paju Art Village and Shenanigans

For the long holiday weekend (4 days), I went with a friend to visit Paju.  This is a big-ish city in the northern part of South Korea.  Paju has a lot of things to do but we went with the sole purpose of visiting the Art Village.  We really wanted to visit book city, which is where a majority of South Korea's books come from, but it was too far from our hotel.  On the first day we went to the Art village and walked around, checking out cafes and museums.  We only did one museum that day, the Modern Korean History museum.  This museum was a replica of what Korea used to look like during the 1960's or 1970's.  It was similar to a living history museum, without the actors.  I really liked all of the random things and would highly suggest this museum because of all the memorabilia.  Here are a lot of photos from the first day!

 

On the second day, we went back to the Art Village.  We were on a mission to go into this cute modern art museum we saw on the first day, but they were closed.  Which was a bummer but we had other plans as well.  We went to an erotic art museum, which was so much fun and I will not show photos from that day because NO!  We chilled with food and coffee for a while and then decided to go to the French village, a few kilometers away.  La Provence, is made up to look like it is a small French village,  but really it just felt like Korea's attempt at a French village.  Everything was made for Korean's taste, which is fine, we are in Korea but it wasn't what Carolyn or I expected.  All good though.  It is a colorfully cute little village and good if you want to do some shopping.  After the French village we decided to go to the Paju Outlets, to compare them to the Yeoju Outlets.  They turned out to be very very similar to one another.  In the end we decided to get some wine from the liquor store and people watch at the outlets.  It was a great end to a wonderful time in Paju.  I will probably go again when mom gets to Korea because I think she would really like it!