□ The City of Busan has appointed additional global real estate agencies for 2024 to consolidate realtors’ competencies and prevent Jeonse fraud from occurring against foreigners.
□ The selected global real estate agencies are appointed by the city of Busan in an effort to protect the housing rights of foreigners (including international students) dealing with real estate transaction contracts and to provide enhanced tailored real estate services in line with global standards.
○ The city of Busan has designated global real estate agencies every one or two years since 2010. The process ramped up after 2019 as part of efforts to prevent Jeonse fraud, but was temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
□ Busan has selected 34 realtors this year (English: 16, Japanese: 14, Chinese: 4) for a total of 74 global realtors that now provide real estate agency services tailored to foreigners within the city.
○ This year’s selection criteria included the following: practicing realtors who as of April 1, 2024 have been in engaged as a real estate broker for one or more years and who have not received any administrative punishments within the past one year. To receive an “acceptable” judgment, realtors must demonstrate their knowledge and language capability during the screening process. Those selected were realtors with the highest scores in each language and those who could meet the increased demand.
○ During the first screening phase, the city of Busan screened applicants’ criteria-meeting documents as received by various Gus and Gun (local governments). Then, interview judges recommended by the Korea Association of Realtors and the International Relations Division of Busan Metropolitan City screened for knowledge and language capability in a small conference room on the 12th floor of Busan City Hall.
○ Visit the Busan and Gu/Gun website to see the current status of global real estate agencies.
List of Global Real Estate Agencies in Busan
English https://www.busan.go.kr/eng/bshouse03
Japanese https://www.busan.go.kr/jpn/bshouse03
Chinese https://www.busan.go.kr/zhs/bshouse03