Korea Portal

Housing In Korea

The majority of teaching contracts include a rent free furnished apartment. This will usually consist of your own single studio apartment with 1 bedroom, or a 2 to 3 bedroom apartment or villa shared with other foreign teachers from your school. Some apartments are in high-rise tower blocks and some may even be in office buildings. The quality of teacher's housing varies, but usually it's very acceptable.

Your housing should be located within walking distance of your place of employment.

Be prepared for accommodation that is structured for seasonal changes. For instance, under floor heating systems (ondol) for winter and air conditioning or fans for summer. Many houses actually have 3 levels of windows that can act as double-glazing. You may even find you get a number of metal bars on your windows like a prison cell. Once again this is totally common in Korea and is seen as security. The fact that you cannot escape from this barred window in an emergency does not seem to have entered the builder's mind!

General furnishing should be provided if arranged by the employer.

It may be very difficult to take a non-working spouse or partner to stay with you unless you have been provided a single studio. With most shared accommodation only one bedroom is provided per employee and the other foreign teachers may not approve of getting an 'extra' flatmate, especially when the kitchen and bathroom areas are all shared.

Key Money

Your employment contract may require you to lease a separate apartment. If this is the case, either you or your employer will be required to pay key money. The key money is usually around 5 months of rent.

The average cost per bedroom in Seoul is approximately 300,000 to 400,000 won a month.

Housing Bonds

Your teaching contract may require you to pay a utility bond of up to 600,000 won over 3 to 6 months. This is then held in trust by the school in case you leave huge bills or do other damages.

What About Utilities?

The average utility costs each month are between 70,000 to 200,000 won per apartment, depending on the season. There can be a big variation in costs in the peak of summer (June to August) and the peak of winter (December to February. This is because the high costs of air conditioning units, underfloor heating and hot water.

Sometimes in Korea utility costs are worked out 'per building' and then divided by each apartment. So if you are using very little hot water and a Korean family close by is doing excessive use then in effect you may be subsidising their use.

Hot water is often on a gas heating system and you may need to know where to turn this on before you have a shower. Many teachers setting up in apartments have thought there was no hot water and suffered the consequences.

There is often a building maintenance fee to cover a janitor cleaning corridors and stairwells etc.

Other Amenities?

Amongst internet users in South Korea, 94% use broadband, surprisingly more than 10% higher than the global average. South Korea ranks highly in household telecommunication spending and has passed 70% of household internet penetration.