[Part 1] 173. One room hunting

Spent the most part of today one room(원룸)-hunting with Daniel in Jeonpo 전포 and Gaegeum 개급 areas, serving as his translator, because he wants to move out of the dorm. And in the process, I gained experience in asking for a room and now, I think I more or less know what to do when I look for my room in Seoul later this year.

Cafes in Jeonpo area

Basically, what you do is to go to an area that you’re interested in and look for 부동산 real estate offices. If not, you could look for adverts that say 원룸임대문의 and call the numbers on the adverts.

In Jeonpo, I called a number and 2 agents (a man and a lady) came to meet us within 15 minutes and they brought us to a really nice one room in that area but it was too pricey. Got into their car and then they drove us to Gaegeum to look at a cheaper place. After we parted ways, I called another agent and he came with a lady to bring us to more places around the area. I really like the loft room! 320,000원/month, inclusive of the 관리비 (internet, cable TV and water) but exclusive of the gas and electricity charges. Deposit’s 3,000,000원 for a year. I hope to find a loft in Seoul but I know it’ll be way out of my budget :(
For the agents we met today, they said the same thing: for every increment of 1,000,000원 that you pay for the deposit, the monthly rent will go down by 10,000원.

If you’re still looking for a room and don’t want to commit yet, just ask for their name card (they’ll probably give it to you anyway) and tell them that you’ll contact them later on. If you do decide on a room, they’ll draft up a simple contract for you and you have to place a reservation deposit for them to reserve the room for you. For your 1st month, you’ll be required to pay the deposit 보증금 and the 1st month’s rent together, less the reservation deposit amount.

Most of the newer rooms in Jeonpo area were quite dark because the one room buildings are built very close to each other, which reduces the amount of light entering the rooms. On the other hand, the older buildings aren’t built so close to each other so the rooms are brighter, but older and dirtier too. So you have a tradeoff.

Decided to call it a day at around 4pm+ and went for a late lunch!