President Kim Hak-kyu of Korea Appraisal Board (KAB).

A 15-member Vietnamese delegation, headed by Đào Trung Chính, deputy director general of the General Department of Land Administration (GDLA), visited Korea’s Appraisal Board (KAB) on June 17. The delegation made the trip to learn a method of calculating official land prices, online systems and the database that the KAB has accumulated over the years. The trip is part of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA)’s project to strengthen Vietnam’s land price calculation capability and improve its land information system.
The KAB has been implementing a project to establish land price calculation methods and model development, land information and systems in Vietnam’s four provinces, including Danang. It is the KAB’s first case of exporting its official price notification system aboard.
The establishment of a land price notification regime has emerged as a national task as real estate development is surging on the back of Vietnam’s economic strides.
Vietnam is not the sole country to learn the KAB’s tactics on calculating office land prices. Saudi Arabian and Thai counterparts are turning to the KAB to benchmark Korea’s official land price notification regime.
Why are foreign countries knocking on Korea’s door for help? Kim Se-hyung, head of the KAB’s Planning and Coordination Office, said Europe and Japan have official survey systems in place, but there is almost nothing - other than in Korea - outfitted with advanced online systems based on IT. Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries are paying attention to Korea’s model to cope with a flood of conflicts surrounding loss compensation over land ownership and utilization rights.
The KAB, marking nearly half-a-century since its establishment, has made strides to provide support to the survey of official land prices on the global real estate market.
The KAB was established as a government-invested body by merging departments charged with the financial sector’s secured loans in 1989. The board began public notice of real estate prices in 1989 under the former President Roh Tae-woo government.
The KAB offers the real estate database it has accumulate for several decades to the private sector for free. Among representative examples of the board opening its information to the private sector is the KAB Real Estate Information App. The application allows the general public to find land and housing prices as well as transaction information with ease. Real estate information tailored according to specific prices and locations can be also searched.

KAB Headquarters in Daegu. (Photos: KAB)

State-Approved Stats on Public officetel Prices Movements

Korea Appraisal Board (KAB) announced the outcomes of a survey into “officetels,” multi-purpose buildings with residential and commercial units, across the nation as an official stat approved by the Statistics Korea (KOSTAT).
The board said on April 2 it will make public officetel prices, jeonse and monthly rent price movements from the first quarter of this year. As one- or two-member households and officetels, alternatives to housing units, emerging as replacement to ordinary housing units, are on the rise, KAB has been allowed by KOSTAT to survey officetel transaction prices, jeonse and monthly rent prices and announce their stats on a monthly basis.
Jeonse is a Korean type of house lease contract in which the lessee pays a great part of the house price to the lessor as deposit money in lump sum. KAB’s first survey on officetel prices, jeonse and monthly rent price movements showed that officetel prices in Daegu declined 0.36 percent in the first quarter of the year, compared to the previous quarter, lower than the nation’s average of 0.52 percent.
Officetel transaction prices across the nation showed signs of being polarized. Officetel prices in the Seoul metropolitan area increased 0.72 percent for the period between January and March and on the other hand, those in provincial areas dropped 0.29 percent.