Social media and real estate study groups are sending growing numbers of people through private homes in South Korea even when they have little or no intention of buying. The result is a dispute over something that buyers have long taken for granted. Should seeing a home remain free when the visitor may be there mainly to study the market or make online content?
The controversy has put South Korea’s government in an awkward position. Some real estate brokers have argued that they should be able to charge for property showings after spending weekends arranging visits for people who never planned to make an offer.
The government has rejected a separate viewing fee, but the complaints have left policymakers and the brokerage industry with a broader problem over how to prevent unlimited unpaid showings without making it harder for genuine buyers to see homes.
The issue has a direct parallel in the U.S., where the relationship between buyers and agents has already become more contractual. Since August 2024, agents participating in Multiple Listing Services covered by National Association of Realtors rules generally must enter into written agreements with buyers before touring homes with them. Those agreements establish the services an agent will provide and how compensation will work, while making clear that broker fees are negotiable.
South Korea’s problem grew out of a much less formal practice.
Groups of five to 10 people increasingly organize through online communities and spend weekends visiting neighborhoods and apartments together. Some are studying the property market or preparing for a future purchase. Others are looking for material for social media.
The groups are commonly known as imjang crews. The term matters less than what some of them do. Instead of limiting their research to neighborhoods, apartment complexes and publicly available information, some approach real estate offices as if they were genuine prospective buyers and ask to be taken inside homes that are actually for sale.
That can turn casual market research into hours of work for everyone else involved.
A broker may first speak with the visitor, check listings and contact the owner or tenant. The broker then has to coordinate schedules and accompany the visitor to the property. A homeowner hoping to sell quickly may clean the home and set aside part of the weekend.
A tenant still living there may have to rearrange personal plans to allow strangers inside.
When the visitors were never seriously considering a purchase, none of that effort had much chance of producing a transaction.
Brokers say the problem can be especially pronounced in areas that attract heavy interest because of redevelopment prospects. In some cases, every group arriving at a brokerage during a day can turn out to be people studying the market rather than genuine home buyers.
The spread of social media has made the distinction between a buyer and a spectator harder to police. Property research that once required an individual to visit an area can now become a group activity organized online, while apartment tours and neighborhood analysis can themselves become content.
Brokers face a difficult choice. Refusing a group that looks suspicious could mean turning away an actual customer. Letting everyone through can mean spending a weekend providing free services to people who have no intention of buying.
There may also be consequences beyond wasted time.
A homeowner who repeatedly sees people coming through a property could interpret the traffic as strong demand and raise the asking price. Yet the apparent interest may have little connection to the number of people prepared to make an offer. Brokers can face the opposite problem when owners see many visitors but no sale and begin questioning why the property has not moved.
Those frustrations produced calls for what has become known as an imjang fee, a charge for showing properties.
South Korea’s government has said such a separate fee cannot be allowed under the current system. That has shifted the debate away from simply charging at the door and toward ways of controlling who receives a broker’s time and how much service can reasonably be provided without charge.
One proposal is to give brokers clearer authority to refuse property tours when the stated purpose is education, sightseeing or content creation. Brokerages could also announce in advance that they do not provide showings for those purposes.
The obvious weakness is that anyone can claim to be considering a purchase.
The American approach offers a different model. Rather than requiring an agent to determine whether a potential buyer is sincere, written buyer agreements define the relationship before the agent begins touring homes with that customer. Under current NAR rules, MLS participants working with a buyer must have such an agreement in place before a home tour, subject to applicable state and federal law.
That does not mean every American who walks into an open house has to sign a contract. Someone independently attending an open house generally does not need a written buyer agreement. The requirement applies when a buyer begins working with an agent and tours a home with that professional.
A similar system in South Korea could move the argument away from trying to identify who belongs to a study group. Brokers and customers could instead establish in advance what services will be provided and under what conditions additional work would be required.
South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport says it is not currently reviewing a specific policy targeting the property tour groups, but it has left open discussions with the country’s brokerage industry.
That means South Korea has rejected one answer without resolving the underlying problem.
Social media has made it easier than ever to turn someone else’s home into research material or content. The question now facing the country’s real estate industry is how long the labor required to provide that access can remain free.
