"The House Was Just Rented"…Real Estate Agency Posting Misleading Ads Faces Crackdown

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Monitors False and Exaggerated Advertisements from August to October
24,259 Reports Received... 8,830 Actions Taken
402 Serious Cases Subject to Fine Imposition

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Jiwon] Office worker A searched for a house near Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul due to a job transfer and found an 800,000 KRW monthly rent fully furnished villa online. A immediately contacted the brokerage office to confirm the listing and visited the office at the scheduled time the next day, but the agent said, "That house was just rented," and showed another property with a monthly rent of 1,100,000 KRW. A had no choice but to sign a contract for this house. However, shortly after, he found out that the initially viewed 800,000 KRW villa was a so-called 'bait listing.'

This case was an actual complaint received during the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's periodic monitoring of online advertisements. From now on, licensed real estate agents who lure consumers with 'bait advertisements' and then introduce properties with different prices will be fined 5 million KRW.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced the results on the 7th after conducting monitoring of online brokerage listings to reduce consumer damage caused by false or exaggerated advertisements and to establish a market practice of accurately displaying property information.

This monitoring aimed to verify whether the regulations on the display and advertisement of brokerage listings, implemented on August 21, are being properly followed in the market. The Korea Internet Advertising Foundation, specialized in advertisement monitoring, conducted the investigation commissioned by the Ministry.

During the monitoring period from August 21 to October 20, a total of 24,259 complaints were received regarding false or exaggerated advertisements, unqualified advertisements, and inaccurate descriptions. The Ministry took corrective actions such as content correction and advertisement suspension for 8,830 cases that were confirmed to have issues. For 402 serious cases, local governments plan to impose fines and other penalties.

The number of complaints decreased by 41.2% from 15,280 in the first month to 8,979 in the second month. Although there was some confusion in the field during the initial implementation of the amendment, it is interpreted that the system is gradually settling.

By complaint reception channel, 21,262 cases were reported to real estate brokerage platform companies, and 2,997 cases were received by the monitoring agency, the Korea Internet Advertising Foundation.

Among the 402 regulation violations analyzed by the monitoring agency, 318 cases involved inaccurate descriptions such as address and direction, 63 cases were false or exaggerated advertisements, and 21 cases were advertisements by unqualified persons (such as brokerage assistants). The Ministry plans to create and distribute guidelines on regulation application focusing on major violation cases within this year.

Han Jeonghee, Director of the Real Estate Industry Division at the Ministry, emphasized, "Continuous monitoring is important to prevent false listings from gaining a foothold in the market," adding, "From next year, we will establish a thorough investigation system including quarterly regular monitoring and ad hoc monitoring of suspicious areas and brokerage platforms."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.