Korea Appraisal Board (KAB) President Suh Jong-dae. (Photos:KAB)

Korea Appraisal Board (KAB) President Suh Jong-dae called for his board to be armed with solidarity, greater vision and a more aggressive spirit. “We have to accomplish our reform measures without a hitch by having an attitude of humbling ourselves and serving the people as their public servants to overcome egoist resistance and obstructions, as we demonstrated with guts and passion during last year,” President Suh declared in his New Year message. “I strive to make this year a year for establishing a regime for preparing for 100 years ahead.”

The following are excerpts of the message he delivered at a ceremony to launch the 2015 business year at its headquarters in Daegu on Jan. 2. 

“This year is the Year of the Sheep, one of 12 animals which brings several benefits to human beings, and this year falls on the Year of the Blue Ship, every 60 years, which is a year that will bring dignity and good luck.”

“But if the ship gets angry, the animal cannot be controlled, too stubborn to change its position,” he said. Summoning this spirit of humanitarianism and an attitude of being gentle in appearance yet strongly-minded inside, the KAB president urged his executives and staff members to respect others and have a strong-minded conviction of doing what he or she considers right. 

“Last year, our board asked for management reform designed to meet people’s demands, as the government called for the normalization of public entities, and despite such difficult business conditions as worsening financial status stemming from a dwindling market and the implementation of profit-low projects, we have achieved remarked performances.”

KAB introduced a basic survey system for appraising official land prices, based on IT and database, KAB President Suh said. The move served as an opportunity to overhaul the 25-year-old high-cost, low-efficiency, public filing of official land prices, and it saved some 12 billion won in taxpayer money and established a foundation to advance public filing of official land prices to levels of advanced countries. 

In the real estate appraisal field, KAB established infrastructure for providing quality information to the business community by releasing a publication on working guidelines of appraisal and evaluation to improve trustworthiness and ramping up expertise and integrating real transaction prices, aerial maps and study materials into the appraisal and evaluation information system. 

The board expanded the appraisal sampling assessment, considered a stringent compensation evaluation, and conducted a thorough feasibility study to correct the long-standing malpractices of slipshod appraisals and evaluations, such as the controversy over Hannam The Hill. 

In the real estate stat field, KAB expanded jeonse (a rental deposit system) and weolse (monthly rental fees) statistics infrastructure by putting on public notice real apartment jeonse-woelse conversion rates to stabilize low-income households’ livelihoods, and took over the real estate transaction management system to build a regular verification system and correct real estate malpractices such as “down contract” (false transaction documents).

In the compensation agency area, KAB has linked its compensation system and the public compensation information support system, operated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), allowing the utilization of advanced spatial information and “informatizing” all compensation processes. The board has established itself as an institution specializing in compensation agencies by carrying out such mega-orders as the compensation agency of the Seoul-Munsan Expressway and the Daedong High-Tech industrial Complex.

Exploring new businesses, KAB played a part in a plan to enhance the soundness of real estate collateral loans extended by the National Credit Union Federation of Korea. The board also took over the public housing management information system and went to all lengths to expand to 47 the number of apartment management costs categories, which are put on public notice in order to enhance public housing occupants’ satisfaction. 

In the green building sector, KAB has been designated as one of the building energy efficiency rating certification institutions. The board built a one-stop service system to certify newly-built structures and a platform for long-term growth by hiring experienced manpower and revamping work processes. 

These efforts and achievements have earned outside recognition. 

KAB’s standing is on the rise as the board ranked 1st in an integrity survey conducted by the Anti-corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC), won the Excellence Award for Future Preparedness, the Cyber Security Excellence Award, and the Enterprise Architecture (EA) Award, and topped the list of MOLIT-affiliated organizations in terms of Enterprise Architecture (EA).

“External and internal economic conditions are projected to improve a little during this year, but volatility is expected to be greater than previous years, so KAB is still not in a stable situation,” said President Suh Jong-dae.

“We need to be armed with greater vision, more aggressively challenging spirit, and solidarity than ever,” said Suh. “We have to accomplish our reform measures without a hitch by having an attitude of humbling ourselves and serving the people as their public servants to overcome egoist resistance and obstructions, as we demonstrated with guts and passion during last year. 

“I strive to make this year a year for establishing a regime for preparing for 100 years ahead.” 

KAB President Suh expounded the top three tasks the board will focus on during this year.

First, he called for the board’s execution of such public responsibilities entrusted as a public entity as public filing of standard prices for real estate taxation and real estate market management in a progressive and proactive fashion. 

“We’re going all out to complete the institutionalizing of steps to advance the Korean appraisal and evaluation market to levels of advanced countries, which was established in 2010, within this year without failure, as our board’s compromise proposal to regain appraisal expertise and trust.”

As for public filing of real estate prices, the KAB president said that his board will be devoted to firming up its standing and roles as an institution specializing in surveying and calculating official prices of real estate to ensure real estate order and fair taxation. 

Regarding the real estate appraisal sector, he said that KAB plans to establish detailed guidelines for appraisal and evaluation to prevent abuse of discretionary power and make government-commissioned feasibility studies substantive to correct unfair appraisal and evaluation. The board will also ramp up functions to maintain the order of the appraisal and evaluation market by performing an advance sampling assessment in a fair way and resurging compensation evaluation. 

In the real estate statistics field, he said KAB plans to solve all statistics problems that put the board under criticism last year and come up with steps to revamp systems to remove loopholes and enhance precision. 

In the compensation agency sector, he said the board will concentrate on mega-projects with public interests in accordance with principles of proper compensation and project cost reduction, ramp up activities to win orders through equity investments, and build a scientific system.

KAB plans to build a cooperative mechanism with financial regulation authorities to enhance the soundness of collateral-based assets extended by financial institutions while preparing for taking charge of evaluating disaster damages and operation of a real estate investment trusts (RITS) information system. The board also plans to make inroads into foreign markets of such support projects as real estate evaluation in emerging economies.

KAB strives to be a green structure business leader that specializes in supporting the institutionalization of an emission trading system by making the most of its successful acquisition and operation of building an energy/greenhouse gas emission information system. 

Second, he said that KAB would devote itself to following government policies in regards to the “creative economy” and stated tasks and innovation at public entities.

Third, he said that KAB would do its utmost to make the board a modern institution with a sophisticated organizational capability.