She says that getting a loan for a home is not dependant on income but I have trouble believing that. Fortunately her sister is a very successful realtor and will help us find a good deal and we won’t have to pay her a commission!

We found a cool place within our budget so no loan is needed.

While we were doing walk-throughs on another round of duds with a local real estate agency, he got a call about a place that just opened up. We opened the front door and…. whoa. The living room/kitchen is bigger than our entire current apartment. The floor is nice. The neighborhood is good enough (close to a park and good grocery store). It is a comfortable 15-20 minute walk from work.

The key money is taking almost all our available capital, but the lifestyle upgrade is worth it and we will have some more capital in a few months.

The place is not perfect (our winter heating bill will certainly be higher) but we are both happy with it.

Thanks for all the advice. I am sure some reader will benefit from it.

We (Korean wife and I) own what I consider to be a nice apartment in Haengshin-dong, Koyang City (20 minutes from Shinchon station by old train). We would be interested in selling it to a reliable buyer. Having been a “foreigner” in Korea myself, I would be willing to do a deal with a reliable “foreigner.”

Serious inquiries only from reasonable people like Andy Jackson and sanshinseon would be enthusiastically received. Creative ways of doing the deal are possible.

Details on the apartment that I can remember (going back to 1998) are as follows:

- Apartment complex built app. 1994
- Has 2 balconies
- On the 6th or 7th floor
- Medium-sized apartment (not small, but not like huge luxury apartment. I don’t remember how many pyong)
- Within walking distance of Han River (used to be through rice paddies, but now may be TGV train maintenance yard?)
- 20 minute access to Ewha Univ.
- Might be available immediately, but might not, depending on wife’s willingness to pay early move-out penalties to current tenants

E-mail me directly at kpmsprtd@nospam.yahoo.com (remove the nospam.) for more info.

> the majority of men just looked up and said no,
> while the women went for the big book of rules
> and found the information.

Yup — in most Korean institutions, always talk to a woman if you want to get anything actually done or found out — only talk to the men to get approval for something at the end of the process…

I also work in Gwangju (with Jay) and got a a credit card and a loan from the bank. The credit card was initially secured by my friend at the bank but since I have maintained my credit rating they have relaxed and returned my credit limit up to where it was after the government imposed reduction of limits about 3 years ago. (Some people may remember that the government cut credit limits across the board by 20% when the credit companies started to go into bankruptcy.

I got a loan from the Agricultural cooperative (Nong Hyup) Four years ago when my wife and I moved into our 전세 apartment. Initially they were not going to give me the loan,I’m a foreigner and they didn’t give loans to foreigners. My friend gave the bank my tax returns papers for 2 years, a copy of my contract at the university and 3 months worth of pay stubs and asked “why not?”

Once the bank manger realized that a. I make a lot of money, b. I work at a recognized academic institute and c. I had been around Korea for some time and d. had a good credit history, he said yes.

The initial loan was a three year loan and I rolled it for one more year. I learned at the time from the bank that 21004 and 2005 had been a bad year for loans to foreign nationals, and many loans had been in default. As a result, I had to pay back 10% of the initial loan of 10 mill. won, but they happily rolled the loan and gave me the old preferred customer interest rate.

As foreign nationals we must realize that most people do not know how to deal with us (The county office I deal with always consults this giant manual on foreign resident administration procedures every time I go there). Really, how many non-koreans are there in Korea and how many of them are applying for loans?

The other side of this problem, from the banks’ perspective, there are some foreign residents that are ‘gypsies’ and do present a credit risk (a flight risk) and this was a recent problem as mentioned above. There is of course some perception, created and reinforced by the crazy antics, that get published in the news that we are a risky, unstable bunch.

You do have some flexibility as well in choosing the loan terms, such as maturity and whether you pay fixed or variable-rate interest.

Jay is also spot on in saying that you should not take the word of the first bank employee you speak with who says, “No loans for foreigners.” Often that is nothing more than the employee’s ignorance and/or unwillingness to do paperwork in an unfamiliar way. The truth is that every Korean commercial bank has an Intranet containing up-to-date internal credit policies (including those involving granting loans to non-Korean citizens) and in addition, has internal helplines bank employees can call for assistance when confronted with unfamiliar situations. Polite insistence can be a plus here. And, as always, a pre-existing relationship with the bank can’t hurt.

The loan I received was a 5 year, variable rate, closed-end mortgage (pay the interest, for 5 years, then pay the lump sum borrowed)…

Gadzooks, 5 years to save a few hundred million. Guess one could sell the apartment at year 4, pay off the principal, and apply for a new loan.

Having a Korean wife would simplify things…

But if she is green card holder (or its non-US equivalent) it’ll complicate things. But an in-law can help.

I found that if I could find a female bank loan manager, I had better success at getting good information. Most of the loan managers had no idea what to do with a foreigner, but the majority of men just looked up and said no, while the women went for the big book of rules and found the information.

No surprises there.