“It seems that the number of ‘walking customers’ has decreased recently, perhaps because it is off-season.”
On the 11th, a licensed brokerage office located on the side of a crossroads in the Gangbuk area of Seoul. Right across the street, there is an authorized brokerage office of similar size in the shopping mall next door. There is a large-scale apartment nearby, but it is not easy to sign a sales contract for ‘two cases in a month’. An official from an authorized brokerage office said, “It seems that the number of customers walking into the property has decreased because of the off-season overlapping with the holiday season and the rainy season.”
Although various indicators indicating the real estate economy are showing signs of recovery, real estate brokerages are still in an atmosphere of being in a slump. Although the volume of transactions is increasing in the metropolitan area, it is said that contracts are still rare in the field. As the frozen business conditions do not improve, only real estate closings are increasing.
According to the Korea Licensed Realtors Association on the 12th, in the first quarter of 2022, there were 4972 licensed realtors, more than 2,000 more than closed/closed realtors (2824). However, as the real estate downturn began in earnest last year, the number of real estate openings decreased and the number of closings continued to increase. From the third quarter of last year, licensed real estate agents that closed and closed business began to outnumber those that opened. In the second quarter of this year, there were 3197 newly opened real estate agents and 4132 closed/closed real estate agents.
A cold wind still blows in the brokerage industry, but indicators related to the real estate market are improving. Looking at the quarterly housing transaction volume, it declined from 289,525 in the second quarter of 2022 to 195,627 in the third quarter and 먹튀검증184,722 in the fourth quarter, but it turned upward in the first quarter of this year (204,917) and in the second quarter (252,617 ) also increased. Looking at the apartment transaction volume alone, it increased from 129,940 in the fourth quarter of last year to 162,783 in the first quarter of this year, and continued to increase until the second quarter (201,045).
Following the recent metropolitan area, the decline in apartment prices in the provinces has also stopped, giving strength to the theory of a bottoming house price, and there are signs of a recovery in housing purchase sentiment. In particular, Seoul apartment purchase sentiment has been on the rise for 22 consecutive weeks. According to the Korea Real Estate Agency, the Seoul apartment sales supply and demand index has continued to rise since the fourth week of February (66.3), and recorded 88.3 in the fifth week of last month (as of the 31st).
It is analyzed that the reason why the number of closed properties is increasing even though real estate transactions are reviving is due to large differences in the real estate market by region and complex. Kim Je-gyeong, director of Tumi Real Estate Consulting, said, “The characteristic of recent transactions is that they are not in an increasing atmosphere in the market, but mainly in base areas and large complexes.” said.
The fact that some real estate agents were found to have participated in the ‘charter fraud’, which emerged as a social problem, and the brokerage industry lost trust and narrowed its place also had an impact. Here, various direct transaction platforms have appeared, and it has become easier for consumers to engage in direct transactions that can save brokerage fees. ‘Peter Pan’s Good Farting’, a cafe representing direct real estate transactions, has 2.99 million members.
The fact that non-residential real estate transactions such as commercial facilities are still slowing seems to have had an impact. In the second quarter of this year, commercial business real estate transaction volume was 41,640, which was half of the second quarter of last year (81,324). An official from the brokerage industry said, “At authorized brokerage offices, which are mainly located in shopping malls and knowledge industry centers, customers are more precious.” They say it’s getting more frequent,” he said.
Because of this situation, some in the brokerage industry say that ‘Songong’, which does not have to worry about monthly rent and basic expenses, is better than ‘Gaegong’ (real estate agent). The popularity of the realtor test, which has been hot for years, is also rapidly cooling down. According to the Human Resources Development Service of Korea Qnet, the number of applicants for the first round of the realtor test soared from 138,287 in 2018 to 186,278 in 2021, but decreased to 176,016 last year.