Candidates are entering the 31st Qualified Realtor Examination held last year. /News1
A graduate student (31, female) living in Dobong-gu, Seoul plans to take the real estate agent exam in Daejeon this year. I tried to submit the application on the first day of the application period, but it was not easy to access the application site. When I managed to get in to register, I couldn’t take the test in Seoul because most of the test centers in Seoul as well as the test center near Jeong’s house were closed.
People in their 20s and 30s, who have recently emerged as leading players in the real estate market, are also keen to acquire a certified real estate agent license. Even highly educated people like Jung often take the brokerage exam. The young people who jumped into the real estate market with a ‘young-chul’ loan are finally taking the real estate exam as an alternative to job instability and a means of financial technology.
According to the real estate industry and the Human Resources Development Service of Korea on the 14th, applications for the 32nd Qualification Examination for Real Estate Brokers started on the 9th. Applications were accepted until the 13th, but most of the test centers in Seoul were closed on the 10th, the second day of application. On the first day of application, the number of concurrent users exceeding the expected number of concurrent users rushed to Qnet of the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, where applications are received, and the website went down.
The real estate agent exam has been so popular that it is called a ‘national examination’, but this year, the number of test takers exploded. As house prices skyrocketed due to the lack of employment, it is analyzed that many young people are preparing for the certification exam by studying real estate. According to the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, the age of test takers last year was 32% in their 40s and 29% in their 30s, and 6 out of 10 people in their 30s and 40s accounted for.
Park So-eun (31), a fourth-year employee of a public company, also took the real estate agent exam this year. While working for the company, I took my time and studied real estate and tax laws for 3 or 4 hours a day. Park, who has a stable job, decided to acquire a real estate agent’s license based on her experience when she bought a new house last year. In the process of buying and selling a house, Park paid more than 10 million won in brokerage fees alone.
Park said, “I was shocked to see that even if only three or four deals were made by brokers, they could generate profits that exceeded the average salary of an office worker. As life expectancy is getting longer, I decided that I should prepare in advance to prepare for the future.”
Information for sale is attached to a real estate agent’s office in Seongdong-gu, Seoul. /News1
Many opinions point to the recent rise in real estate prices as one of the reasons why young people are challenging for real estate agents. As house prices soared, brokerage fees also skyrocketed, so even if only one or two transactions were made, profits were not small. Currently, the real estate brokerage fee is set by local ordinances. As for the housing brokerage commission rate in Seoul, the upper limit rate is 0.4% for 200 million to 600 million won, and 0.5% for 600 million to 900 million won. In the case of more than 900 million won, it is necessary to negotiate within 0.9%.
Accordingly, in the case of Seoul, brokerage commissions of up to 0.9% of the house price are charged when brokering houses with more than 900 million won. Brokerage of a one-billion-dollar apartment costs 9 million won in brokerage fees, and when both the seller and the buyer receive it, a total of 18 million won.
According to KB Kookmin Bank, half of apartments in Seoul are apartments with a market price of 900 million won or more. With simple calculations, the result is that if you broker only one house, you earn more money than the average salary of an office worker. Choi (38), an office worker living in Gangdong-gu, said, “My acquaintance who runs a brokerage company boasted that about 10-20% of workers in the same industry in the same neighborhood were high-income earners earning more than 100 million won a year. Just by looking at the fact that most of the first floors of my shopping malls have brokerage stores, you can guess that the profits are huge.”
Compared to other professional qualifications, there is also an impact that the barrier to entry is low. There are no difficult subjects such as English and accounting, so even if you lack basic learning, you can take the exam.
However, there are many voices calling for caution against blindly staring. Until recently, the number of people eligible for a certified real estate agent license has reached 420,000. Of these, only 110,000 people actually opened brokerage offices. The final pass rate of the exam is not high at 20-30%. Some real estate agents are shutting down due to a decrease in housing transaction volume due to the government’s real estate regulations. According to the Korea Real Estate Brokers Association, there were 12,860 accredited real estate agencies that were closed or closed last year. The number of openings is 17,561, which means that the number of businesses is closed as well.
A CEO who runs a brokerage in Gangnam said, “The market for certified real estate agents, which consistently has around 20,000 license holders every year, is in a state of oversupply and competition is fierce. requested
Ahn Hye-won, reporter at Hankyung.com anhw@hankyung.com
