A person passes by a real estate agent’s office in Seoul on Sept. 12, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – Online-based real estate startups are bulking up rapidly, bringing about a new trend in the South Korean real estate market.
Dawin Property, a real estate brokerage firm, recently attracted an investment of 3 billion won (US$2.54 million) from SoftBank Ventures Asia Corp. and Fast Ventures, according to industry sources.
Under the slogan of promising zero commission for those who put houses on the market and half the usual commission for property buyers, Dawin Property has surpassed the 300,000 mark in the number of monthly active users just six months after launching its services.
Real estate startups specializing in proptech, a term used to describe the application of technology to real estate, are growing at a blistering pace in recent days.
ZIPTOSS, which has been providing online-based real estate brokerage services for small residential properties since 2016, broke the 1 trillion won mark in the amount of total transactions in May.
In contrast, traditional real estate agencies are struggling due to frozen real estate transactions resulting from the government’s strong regulations and the revision of the law to lower real estate brokerage commissions by up to 50 percent.
Real estate commission collusion, which has been pointed out as a chronic problem of the real estate industry, is no longer accepted as a traditional practice.
Last month, the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors’ Office indicted nine real estate agents for sharing information on properties on sale only with those who paid membership admission fees and asking them to maintain a high level of commissions.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
