Ziptoss Is The New Generation Of The Korean Real Estate Industry
Ziptoss(집토스) is South Korea’s first directly-managed real estate company. As of May 2021, Ziptoss has 19 directly operated branches, covering more than 100,000 listings in Seoul and Suwon. Ziptoss provides Chinese and English services and is committed to providing simple, fast, and safe real estate services for each customer.
The Difference Between Ziptoss And Other Real Estate Agencies
Residents in Korea have heard of real estate apps and websites of 직방(Zigbang) or 다방(Dabang), which is a very common tool when looking for Korean housing. Ziptoss also has its app and official website, so what is the difference between the two?
- 직방(Zigbang) and 다방(Dabang) is equivalent to a collective website of housing information. Individual real estate agents in various areas upload their listing information to attract customers.
- The advantage of this is that the information is very diverse and easy to compare under the market competition. However, the tendency of having fake or unrealistic house listings is high since they can be posted by almost anyone who can make an account on the website, not all are reliable.
- To attract customers, many real estate agents will upload pictures of beautifully structured, cheap, and cost-effective houses that seem too good to be true. For example, a spacious, newly built, and fully furnished 1.5 room(one-bedroom & living room) is only worth 370,000won per month, it sounds too good to be true for such a low price. When customers contact the real estate agents through the platform, they would usually tell the customer that the house has been occupied. Then they would tell the customer that they have a better house to offer and ask you to visit the house on the spot. The customer would think that after seeing so many houses on the Internet, they finally found a better place to rent, but it turned out to be another fake listing, which was another house on the spot. The rise of negative events has caused the Korean real estate industry to deal with the reputation of fooling customers and false listings, and also mislead foreigners(even the ones that are multilingual).
The market has suffered unnecessary damage.
To get rid of the problem of false listings in real estate advertising apps similar to the ones in 직방(Zigbang) or 다방(Dabang), Ziptoss combined the rental advertising platform with real estate agents and directly developed its website and app as a real estate company. Ziptoss’s staff is responsible for everything from the collection and display of housing information to viewings, signing contracts, and checking in.
House Listing Process
- The members of the Ziptoss business team are scattered to different areas to conduct on-site inspections, contact homeowners, and collect house listings.
- The business team sends the collected information to Ziptoss’s listing management center, then sends their photographers or managers to take pictures (360-degree shots are also taken).
- The housing management center confirms the information and the identity of the homeowner and confirms the house, then the housing is registered on the official website and app of Ziptoss. The listing center regularly confirms and updates the posted listings, such as price changes or occupancy, and updating the official website information as well.
- All the listings that you see on the Ziptoss official website are real listings, there is always proper inspection and confirmation of homeowners for each listing. We have also opened guest reviews, allowing everyone to read the reviews from past tenants about the homeowners and their rentals. After browsing the listing information, the homeowner is contacted through the Ziptoss official website or app to make it more convenient, rather than being transferred individually to other real estate agencies.
Difference from general real estate agencies
- Ziptoss is a direct real estate company. At present, Ziptoss has 14 directly-operated branches, all of which are managed and deployed by the headquarters. All stores have legal real estate registered brokers, and regular training and education are provided.
- Listings are open and transparent, both the customer and the broker in the direct-sale store use the same source information system, which means that both the broker and the customer will be seeing the same listings. Customers can also browse and compare various listings by themselves, which avoids the issue of information inequality between brokers and customers.
- Legal and safe, function upgrade. All branches of Ziptoss use standard contract styles and provide legal instructions to avoid problems such as disputes and financial loss in the future.
Ziptoss currently supports 3 languages: Korean, Chinese, and English, which can help foreign customers open online viewing contract services, provide check-in guides and talk smoothly with their agents to prevent language barriers. Ziptoss has made its app and website available to those who cannot understand Korean to expand their services worldwide.