Btw, Nebula doesn't show this on the normal link but if use go.nebula.tv/lifetime?ref=polymatter you can still get Lifetime access for $300. This is great for those of you who don't like subscriptions and really want to help support what we're doing. I think you'll really like our latest Nebula UI refresh, which includes a new Nebula News sections. -Evan
Such a goofy idea. There are many ways to give deposits that release back to you when u finish your tenancy of if the landlord passes. This is sinplu SK scamming it's citizens knowingly by not regulating this
Why did your chart show Korea? Korea isn’t a country anymore. You should have listed it has South Korea. Also you should have mentioned Busan city too. Also large. Anyhow nice video. It shows that the South Korean landlords are playing a game of monopoly
0:53 "You can move in today and live here for 2 years without spending a dime" 5:36 "On moving day you, the tenant, give your landlord 100,000s even millions of $"
@@heindoof9 In theory yes if the renter instead of borrowing for the jeonse but put the loan to use for something else. But then they wouldn't have a place to live.
@@mlgcactus1035 Theoretically, the interest a landlord could earn on the money lent should match the rent that would have been collected, and this rental income should equal the apartment's present value in a DCF analysis. However, market distortions can arise due to government regulations or policies. For example, it could be government policy to keep loans for this type of scheme capped at a certain level, L, for people who will actually live in the home. If the required rate of return is R, and L < R, then the government is transferring wealth from one part of the economy, savers, to another part of the economy, borrowers. There is no free lunch for the economy overall, but the borrowers get to save more through subsidized loans at the expense of savers.
@iwiffitthitotonacc4673 Is everywhere really too expensive to rent though? Stop living in expensive urban areas just because "that's the place to be." Move to the outer suburbs, where you can actually afford housing, even on a low service worker's wage. If there are no outer 'burbs because you're in a West Coast metropolis that has expanded into a cliff and literally has no land left to build on, then move to the interior of the country. Wages are livable if you're living in the right place. After all, that's how America got built right? A bunch of poor peasants got priced out of Europe so they crossed the ocean and became Americans. It's a shitty system, to have to pack up and leave your loved ones behind, but it works
hey, here's a wild idea for Nebula: why don't you let us give you 5000 USD for two years of content, then at the end of that period, you give us back exactly 5000 USD?
tldr It’s the Jeonse 전세 system, where tenants lend the landlord much of the value of an outright purchase, in exchange for a multi-year lease at reduced or even no rent in lieu of interest. Sounds like a pretty good deal on paper, but there have been cases of landlords deducting for “damages” and other “fees” when they’re supposed to give back every Won to that former tenant.
Conversely in Singapore most houses are sold on a 'leasehold' basis; even after paying in full for them, you don't get to own it forever, but for usually up to 99 yrs, after which the gov't can repossess it (e.g. to rebuild into taller apartments to be sold again) without paying/compensating you. So this buying of houses on a 'leasehold' basis is sometimes thought of as a form of long-term rental instead. This is good for gov't revenue, & perhaps how it manages to afford building more public housing. Maybe the gov't also shrewly took advantage of the fact that we don't have a culture of passing down our property to the next generation (who'd buy their own houses instead once they grow up), so when the current generation passes on, their family no longer needs the houses & thus would probably be less resistent to it being repossessed
@@flakgun153 But who gets to decide what's considered a "damage" and if that's the fault of the tenant? Is there an independent arbitrator that investigates each damage report?
It’s not free rent and describing it as such is an economically inaccurate way to describe the situation. Rather South Koreans are paying for the apartments through the opportunity cost that comes with paying the deposit upfront, and that opportunity cost can be explicit in terms of the interest rate on the loan that South Koreans may have taken out or implicit in terms of not being able to save, in terms of bonds or equities or any other type of security that pays interest. This is just renting, but in a different form. There is no free lunch in finance.
He didn't describe it as such. It's a clickbaity title to get you hooked in to explain the actual function of how rent works in South Korea. You know that's why, that's how the algorithm works, yet you act like it's because he thinks rents free. Anyone who read that and thought that was the end of it shouldn't be on the internet without supervision. It's very obvious that the cost is the interest of a potential loan as well as any savings that they could have earned on it as the landlord would.
So rename the video to “Rent is paid with forgone bank interest rates and other opportunity costs from a bank loan of 40% of the rented property’s value in South Korea”?
@@inphamous3494 throughout the entire video he keeps repeating "free", including at the very end. Clickbaity is one thing, but to continue to describe it as free for the person giving up hundreds of thousands of dollars is just wrong. If I put down $1,000,000 as a deposit to live in a place and earn no interest, my very real cost is what I would have earned as a low- or no-risk investment. So if I pay that deposit cost for a two year term, I am choosing between a place to live and ~$50,000 (taking US treasuries as the risk free alternative, for simplicity's sake). That's just paying rent, wrapped up with a requirement to have that much capital.
Very far from free rent. You give up interest rates, which in a country with high interest rates, is a lot. In Brazil for example the situation is weird. Its worth buying a house if you don't have the money for it. And its not worth buying a house, if you have the money for it. I explain: - You want a house worth $500,000. You dont have the money. Rent is around $3,000. But if you buy it, you pay like $2,500 per month for the bank. Hence better buy than rent. - You want a house worth $500,000. You have the money. Buy it? No. You invest that in a very conservative investment, and you get $5,000 a month in interest rates. With that you pay the rent and still have income left. If reinvested, your income will only grow. So better rent. This is how it works when interest rates are high and the market don't fully align. So say rent basically free, because you get your full money back in 2 years makes no sense, because you are giving up a lot of interest rates.
The mega corporations in South Korea are like something out of Blade Runner. I lived there in 2014 as an English teacher, and I can attest that saying these giant corporate conglomerates own everything is no exaggeration. Most Americans have probably never heard of Naver, Lotte, or Hanhwa, but in S. Korea these are just a small sample of companies that have everything from their own theme parks, baseball teams, cafes, or in some cases even entire towns.
Not really. Most of these places use the brand name but ownership is not a crazy %. It's not too different from the United States honestly, you'd be surprised to find out about which companies own what there (because they don't share the same name and are subsidiary of subsidiaries, it's not as obvious)
Not to mention, people spend their whole youths trying to get into these companies. It's literally their life goal, nothing else that comes after is going to be as big for them. Cyberpunk checks out.
@@NoteCat540Yeah no, not their life goal. Any company with good pay and welfare will do. That's why chaebols are popular. They give you good paychecks and has good employee welfare. That's it. Not anything out of "loyalty" for a huge corporation. If somewhere else pays better and has better working conditions, people would want to go there. It doesn't always have to be family owned conglomerates. People might favor working in IT companies, non chaebol companies, or public compaines if they find it better. And no one wants to work at small companies because they treat you like shit, and has horrible work conditions. The 'evil' megacorporations treat their employees much better.
@@NoteCat540 I was just about to comment this same thing. Something that is likely viewed as a "dead end job" in the US is the highest ambition of status in South Korea. An office position at a massive corporate company is a goal, rather than an ending point because either your small business idea or dreams of becoming a famous actor did not pan out.
The same happens in India, called the pagdi system. The tenant pays lakhs and the contract is for 1 year. Although I have not heard this being used for high valued properties but it is definitely used for Barracks. I live in Mumbai and have seen this first hand and even have relatives who have given their houses like this.
When you compare rent to non-equity expenses, taxes, insurance, etc., of buying there are many many instances where renting is actually cheaper... You're not throwing your money away
Can you provide examples, I am interested. And you are talking about USA only or also some other places? I heard there is a tax on land in USA, so after buying your own house you still need to pay somewhere(in this case probably local community via a land tax?)
@@nietur They're assuming that the housing market value will rise, thereby increasing the value of their investment. But it's never guaranteed that it will.
Exactly! Repairs and upkeep alone can eat any appreciation and you're stuck with an aging property. Renters can just move to a nicer home. It's impossible for housing prices to continue increasing exponentially in the U.S, this is another bubble that inevitably will burst sooner or later. That's why landlords love the "housing shortage," which decreases tenants' options.
No such thing as throwing away money on rent--you're paying for a place to live. There's significant opportunity cost in saving up a down payment then paying down a loan for 30 years vs being able live cheaper (basically every major US city is cheaper to rent than own for equivalent property) and invest the difference in assets that generally provide a better ROI than a home (like stocks).
The Jeonse system simply put it is like a ponzischeme that no one in Korea thought it would eventually become fraudulent. Outsider who come to Korea have known this system would eventually be a major problem, but in Korea at one point the system was like a national pride only in a country like Korea a jeonse system would ever exist. Simply put it. With government lending support, For the past 50 years, landlords have bought up apartment complex using bank loans of up to 70-80%. Landlords will use the lump sum jeonse lease to pay off their debts and repay the tenants, by using new tenants jeonse money to pay off their previous tenant just like a ponzi scheme. It still goes on today. Citizens in Korea win apartment units from developers following government guidelines and eventually lease the apartment if they can’t afford to pay off their remaining balance.
Their parents. Koreans give their children massive inheritance (especially sons) upon coming of age. Also Koreans are totally dependent on their parents for a long time into adulthood. Most Koreans live with their parents until marriage and that's nowadays not until 30s.
This is not just common in South korea it's also very common in India specially Karnataka so here my family paid money to one of the landlord as lease so they will return is the money within couple of years .The reason they do that is bcs they get the capital without paying a single penny as interest they just return the people without interest just the principal amount had they taken the amount from bank they had to pay 8-9% intrest rate over a period of 10 -15 years so this the approach they take
@@philoslother4602 very common but u need a good initial capital see if you want to lease a 3bhk u need 50-60 lakhs in hand although u will get it back
a common scam in korea is the landlord simply not paying back their loans. and there is nothing you can do about it even if you sue them and win they will say they have no money and you wont get your money back.
This is partially correct. You can take the landlord to court and as the person living in the house and having paid 전세, you claim ownership of the property, the issue is that if the landlord really is bankrupt other creditors will also be trying to reclaim assets from the landlord, so the property will go up for auction and it's likely the banks will get a large share of the sale of the property.
@aaronpugliese no because the scammer sells their house to a 3rd party so the house doesnt belong to the scammer by the time you need to get your money back. So you cant get your money back and you cant keep the house
I live in Korea. My deposit is 80k USD and rent is 200USD and its a mix of this Jeonsae and regular rent. With this system I'm able to stack money and save like crazy cuz I didn't need a loan for that 80k. The downside is that my place isn't mine, not big enough if I want to start a family, or in the best condition.
1:19 hey those are the Samnick Towers in Busan! I used to live there in 2014, they’re pretty old by Korean standards (built in the late 70s), so I only paid $275 USD per month (no Jeonse, no key money, no deposit). 2 bedroom apartment too.
This system must be very difficult for people of lower economic status. How are young people able to afford this if their family isn’t capable of supporting them financially?
but in korea you pay the 90% up front. quite high and egregious rates compared to your standard lease. for most without the use of banks. its the conglomerate tenant and you directly
They can't call it leasing (government tax stuff). That's the novel thing. The structure they came up with IS trying to replicate a lease but without government.
It's weird that we don't have good words in English to describe this arrangement. You're not exactly "paying" anyone because you'll get the money back. However, you do have to put down a large sum of money as a deposit in exchange for getting to live there. Or in other words, you have to lend money in exchange for the use of the property.
You aren't throwing away money on rent. You're paying for housing. The only factor that dominates rent vs own is time in one place. The longer one stays, the more the math favors "owning" (renting from the bank). The shorter one stays, the more the math favors renting.
Actually, even that isn't true in almost all cases. Owning involves lots of other hidden costs that most people don't factor into, such as repairs, maintenance, etc. Owning basically never makes sense unless you want to just do a lifestyle play.
@@tstcikhthysproperty tax lol. If u can’t pay that the government will take ur crib. Nothing is free basically. Unless u have like stuff to cover ur back. Social safety nets of a government etc.
@@dencentbeatz794 Yup, just pick the cheapest way to finance housing. Own or rent. And it nearly ALWAYS comes down to the single biggest factor, which is how long one is going to stay in a place. 20 years basically always cheaper to rent money from the bank to "buy". In between 2 and 20 years, it depends on the market.
The catch is that the home owner bets on the rising property and "rent" values, in order to not have the whole system fall apart around you, as everyone is over leveraged thanks to a combination of government regulation and greed. Wait. Am I still describing Korea or the rest of the Western World?
3:34 - “loans were so cheaply handed out” 6:40 - “high interest rates make buying homes unaffordable” not sure if I missed something here, but how can interest rates on loans be low and high at the same time?
They're loans for different people. The first was low interest loans specially offered to corporations, to spur development. The second is the general commercial interest rates for ordinary people.
When he's talking about handing out loans, I believe it's in reference to the government originating loans to the chaebol, which would have been at more favorable rates than the open market.
Its not quite as bleak as the video suggests. There's such a thing as jeonse insurance. While you can't get it for all types of houses. It costs around $1500, but it means that if your landlord can't give you the money back, the insurance will, and then you chase the landlord together. There are also ways of checking how many debtors they have for the house so you can ensure that if they go bankrupt you'll likely get your money back. So on some level you do have to trust, but there are precautions you can take.
Just wanted to say that you did a great job on the video. My husband is from South Korea, he is fluent in both Korean and English, and he thought you explained it quite well. Please make more videos on Korea and other international events too!
During my 26 yrs in the military I was in South Korea for a total of 7 years. They call it “Key Money”. I can tell you it’s a very nice country with very nice people. If you work in the economy they take a large amount and invest it. It’s mandatory and when you leave they give it back with interest. The military sent me all over Korea and during the weekends I’d jump on a train or bus and get off at any city away from English speakers. I learned to speak and to read and made a lot of friends❤ It’s a very nice country and a lot of fun!!!🎉🎉🎉
They have to pay interest on those loans each month and, presumably, can't get other loans as a result. Or: they can't otherwise deploy that capital to invest it and so lose value to inflation.
Saying that rent is throwing money away is like saying that buying food is throwing money away because you eat the food and then it comes out the other end. Rent can’t be throwing money away unless you genuinely believe that being homeless is a viable option
The "throwing away money" stuff is rich people brain. Rich people think of everything as investment, so everything they buy needs to return their investment. Houses aren't places where you live, houses are investments that need to return their value over time, either by selling or renting out to other people. The American housing market is what you get when you infect an entire country with rich people brain when it comes to shelter.
As a landlord is this situation wouldn't it be better to just give the tenant the deed of the apartment they live in if for whatever reason you cannot afford to pay it back, just have as a legally binding contract at least for the tenants protection.
I think the issue is that you use the homes as collateral on loans that you need to finance further purchases, and so others are in line to collect your debts if you go bankrupt. You own 100 properties, funded by a combination of deposits and bank loans. They all need to be liquidated into a common pool and then distributed back out, and you've probably given the banks some guarantee of priority in your loan contracts. The reason the system is cheap for the tenants is because they are the ones contractually absorbing the risk.
@@samkelo27 I don't think they care about getting the loans down to zero. They just care that the assets are greater than the debts. When they have enough assets they get another loan and keep it going. You obviously don't do it forever though. Over infinite time you're guaranteed to go bankrupt. You do it until you're rich and then you start winding things down, diversifying etc. Sometimes they take it too far and lose everything. Sometimes they get unlucky. That's kinda the whole game. If it wasn't risky everyone would do it.
No it won't. Houses don't last forever. Even if the population is declining, the housing stock is also declining. The result is prices that are at best stagnant and at worst, growing rapidly.
Most developed countries have low birth rates yet house prices keep going up everywhere. It doesn't have to do with actual demands, it's because of speculation.
Overall it’s a pretty good system that expedites the ownership of a home for many people. Outside of Seoul spacious apartments are very reasonably priced…with the lower interest rate climate a blend of a smaller deposit and monthly rent is becoming the norm which is manageable for many people..
In my country (Russia) , property value doesn't change much with time. Apartment in some 30 year old building could cost the same as in a new apartment
The loan is still slightly cheaper but more likely bc the same shortcomings as owning a house here in the US: property taxes, maintenance, repairs, less flexibility to move, etc. Plus from what the vid makes it seem, this system mostly applies to Seoul which is almost entirely apartments, so you would be buying only a box on someone else’s land, plus you’d likely have to pay a monthly community fee to the complex like a condo or HOA.
I'm surprised no Korean politician has proposed to build a city far from Korea's metro area closer to the coast with tax breaks, build lots of affordable housing, a metro system, etc. It'd dyanmise the economy and improving the standards of living
We actually have this same concept in Afghanistan. The landlords can't loan their money to a bank because of a lack of interest-savings accounts but I'm sure they use that money either to invest or to cover major expenses.
This also goes a long way to explain why couples aren't having kids there. It requires couples to both be working. No time for babies and rearing children.
15:12 As an avid Wendover, Jetlag and HaI viewer, this is the first time I've heard of this travel reality show called The Getaway... I have the feeling there was a misunderstanding of the public announcement and Sam got accidentally robbed to make this announcement himself 😄
What a disaster! But it really isn’t any worse than what we do in Australia. In Australia you get a loan to buy a house. Then when you have enough income you leverage your first home to buy another with another loan. Then you keep doing that. The longer it goes on, the more impossible it becomes to buy a home, even with a loan.
In this scenario, you should just have the apartment be collateral for the loan, if the owner can’t pay the deposit back, then the tenant can get the apartment
US$1.8? To buy? Three bedroom, living room, proper kitchen/dining ensemble, a proper entertainment room and lobby, 2,000 square feet Coming from Sydney, that's not half bad. I'd have to learn Korean, though.
China will successfully raise their birth rate with affordable housing. It's already happening. Xi Jinping has already prioritized affordable housing and the birth rate crisis is due to high housing costs. China will stop housing speculation and it will be the best economic play since Deng Xiaoping in the 80s.
It's just renting with extra steps... We do it in our country to but high inflation is making it too expensive just imagine you have to add 30%-50% to your deposit each year with no actual hope of buying your own house
First video where I feel like a huge part of the answer is missing, if you get a loan from the bank for the deposit then you are paying interests instead of paying rent. And if you had the cash, then you are giving it away for 2 years and not getting interest on it
So the answer is the opportunity cost (interest) of a loan to the landlord. This is exactly same as elite schools in Hong Kong who require parents pay huge bonds while their kids go to their school, again to get around school fee caps.
You say that the system might work better because they are not paying rent while saving up for a down payment. But they are. They've got to make the payment on that loan.
The price of that 2000 sqare foot apartment at ~1.8 million is quite reasonable by housing standards in Canada right now. Mobile homes with 1200 sq.ft. go for roughly 10% of that soooo....
We have a very similar deposit system in Iran called "rahn" often for a mere %10-%20 of the value of the propety in Tehran.. This kind of system usually happens in high-interest, high-inflation environments. Where money now is worth a lot more than money in the future because it can be invested in asset bubbles not only retaining it's original purchasing power but sometimes surpassing it! Theoretically, a house should be worth exactly as much as it produces rent. Any more and it's due to speculation which is a lot less in US than in Korea or Iran. what goes up must eventually come down. Making this system necessarily unstable without continual government Intervention.
So wouldn’t the solution to your landlord dying or going bust on paying you back your deposit be they sign the property over to you? You are owed its full value, boom, now it’s yours and you don’t go homeless. Probably because that would be fair to the renter and no system allows for that.
Yeah, giving the tenant this security would be a solution. But the landlord could also give the property to a bank as security for a loan and then get the deposit on top. If the landlord is credit worthy, the bank won't have high interests in the first place.
The video is interesting but the title and the last sentence are factually wrong. If you pay upfront for an apartment that you dont own at all, it is a rent. Hence it is not free as they dont pay you back the interests
Its actually good if you have that kind of down payment although it does beat the purpose as well if you end up taking loan increasing even bigger risk. It sounds good but not very safe with current economy as well as risk stated in the video.
If you have that money already, why not invest it yourself then, why the additional risk + inflation loss? it's more expensive then, especially if it's a bank loan.
"Rent is throwing away money" is a wives tale. Rent is spending money on housing just like homeowners spend money on housing (the later is simply more convoluted so people incorrectly think the homeowner is living "for free")
Yes, but because we allow land prices to inflate the renter is excluded from any potential capital gains which as a homeowner they would otherwise acquire (or conversely the renter avoids negative equity when the bubble bursts)
At the end of the day, all the side effects are passed down from the 30 year long miltary dictatorship of Junghee Park and Doohan Jeon. They are responsible for the high interest loans from wealthier nations and built projects that were too premature for Korea at that time. Their ambitions have eventually caused IMF to step in and so many companies went bankrupt. Their failure in currency reform and the creation of regional conflicts due to tyranny and oppression have subsequently led to generational conflicts, gender conflicts, high-density urbanization in the capital region, high suicide rates, low happiness index, and the world’s lowest birth rate.
0:20 Lotte World looks like a very good theme park, but the rollercoaster collection is subpar. Gyeongju World (two good B&Ms - a dive and an invert) and Everland (T-Express, plus like Lotte World, it's also quite a pretty park). But this isn't really relevant to the video.
Technically, the rent is not free. They paid one lump sum to live for several years. They may not get back the full amount if the landlord want them to pay for "wear and tear".
Btw, Nebula doesn't show this on the normal link but if use go.nebula.tv/lifetime?ref=polymatter you can still get Lifetime access for $300. This is great for those of you who don't like subscriptions and really want to help support what we're doing. I think you'll really like our latest Nebula UI refresh, which includes a new Nebula News sections. -Evan
Such a goofy idea. There are many ways to give deposits that release back to you when u finish your tenancy of if the landlord passes. This is sinplu SK scamming it's citizens knowingly by not regulating this
Takin a break from all the China-bashing, aren't we?
I would like to subscribe but I don't have a credit card
Why did your chart show Korea? Korea isn’t a country anymore. You should have listed it has South Korea. Also you should have mentioned Busan city too. Also large. Anyhow nice video. It shows that the South Korean landlords are playing a game of monopoly
How is there not an insurance market for these people?
0:53 "You can move in today and live here for 2 years without spending a dime"
5:36 "On moving day you, the tenant, give your landlord 100,000s even millions of $"
Well, technically it's a deposit that you'll get the full amount back at the end, so it's kind of like not actually spending money.
@@heindoof9 In theory yes if the renter instead of borrowing for the jeonse but put the loan to use for something else. But then they wouldn't have a place to live.
Yeah that made me go like "hol' up"
LOL exactly. The title is misleading
@@jaryRimhear me out, what if they rented a place. Then invested the money.
"I don't pay rent, I just have a loan I pay interest on!"
Low interest. I suppose it's better than giving away half your paycheck
“Giving away” and “half.”
You’re paying for a place to live, and if rent is half your paycheck, you’re not living below your means.
Yeah if everywhere is too expensive to rent, live below your means and be homeless lol!!!!
@@mlgcactus1035 Theoretically, the interest a landlord could earn on the money lent should match the rent that would have been collected, and this rental income should equal the apartment's present value in a DCF analysis. However, market distortions can arise due to government regulations or policies.
For example, it could be government policy to keep loans for this type of scheme capped at a certain level, L, for people who will actually live in the home. If the required rate of return is R, and L < R, then the government is transferring wealth from one part of the economy, savers, to another part of the economy, borrowers. There is no free lunch for the economy overall, but the borrowers get to save more through subsidized loans at the expense of savers.
@iwiffitthitotonacc4673 Is everywhere really too expensive to rent though? Stop living in expensive urban areas just because "that's the place to be." Move to the outer suburbs, where you can actually afford housing, even on a low service worker's wage. If there are no outer 'burbs because you're in a West Coast metropolis that has expanded into a cliff and literally has no land left to build on, then move to the interior of the country.
Wages are livable if you're living in the right place. After all, that's how America got built right? A bunch of poor peasants got priced out of Europe so they crossed the ocean and became Americans. It's a shitty system, to have to pack up and leave your loved ones behind, but it works
The catch: it's not actually free
Nothing is free
@@michaelusswisconsin6002 bro have you tried breathing in air?
Free as fuck yo
Just like "Free" parking
@@MrA3523 and "free" healthcare
@@j.y.8054boo hoo, a rich guy has to pay more taxes. Who gives a fuck
hey, here's a wild idea for Nebula: why don't you let us give you 5000 USD for two years of content, then at the end of that period, you give us back exactly 5000 USD?
with current high interest rate, it is a win for nebula
You are not very bright u would lose the interest would be 500 bucks in the 2 years assuming a 5 percent interest rate
How about this u give me. 5,000 I give it back after 2 years and I give you a nebula for 2 years ok ?
I will take u ok your offer if u want
Deal
tldr It’s the Jeonse 전세 system, where tenants lend the landlord much of the value of an outright purchase, in exchange for a multi-year lease at reduced or even no rent in lieu of interest.
Sounds like a pretty good deal on paper, but there have been cases of landlords deducting for “damages” and other “fees” when they’re supposed to give back every Won to that former tenant.
its also a deposit so landlords actually are expected to deduct damages jsut like with a normal lease
Conversely in Singapore most houses are sold on a 'leasehold' basis; even after paying in full for them, you don't get to own it forever, but for usually up to 99 yrs, after which the gov't can repossess it (e.g. to rebuild into taller apartments to be sold again) without paying/compensating you. So this buying of houses on a 'leasehold' basis is sometimes thought of as a form of long-term rental instead. This is good for gov't revenue, & perhaps how it manages to afford building more public housing. Maybe the gov't also shrewly took advantage of the fact that we don't have a culture of passing down our property to the next generation (who'd buy their own houses instead once they grow up), so when the current generation passes on, their family no longer needs the houses & thus would probably be less resistent to it being repossessed
@@flakgun153 But who gets to decide what's considered a "damage" and if that's the fault of the tenant? Is there an independent arbitrator that investigates each damage report?
That happens here too with deposits (usually 4-6 months of rent value), and we have to pay rent on top of it.
It’s not free rent and describing it as such is an economically inaccurate way to describe the situation. Rather South Koreans are paying for the apartments through the opportunity cost that comes with paying the deposit upfront, and that opportunity cost can be explicit in terms of the interest rate on the loan that South Koreans may have taken out or implicit in terms of not being able to save, in terms of bonds or equities or any other type of security that pays interest. This is just renting, but in a different form. There is no free lunch in finance.
How much is the median deposit? And the proprotion to the minimum wage?
He didn't describe it as such. It's a clickbaity title to get you hooked in to explain the actual function of how rent works in South Korea. You know that's why, that's how the algorithm works, yet you act like it's because he thinks rents free. Anyone who read that and thought that was the end of it shouldn't be on the internet without supervision. It's very obvious that the cost is the interest of a potential loan as well as any savings that they could have earned on it as the landlord would.
Wow, it's almost like that's what the video explains.
So rename the video to “Rent is paid with forgone bank interest rates and other opportunity costs from a bank loan of 40% of the rented property’s value in South Korea”?
@@inphamous3494 throughout the entire video he keeps repeating "free", including at the very end. Clickbaity is one thing, but to continue to describe it as free for the person giving up hundreds of thousands of dollars is just wrong. If I put down $1,000,000 as a deposit to live in a place and earn no interest, my very real cost is what I would have earned as a low- or no-risk investment.
So if I pay that deposit cost for a two year term, I am choosing between a place to live and ~$50,000 (taking US treasuries as the risk free alternative, for simplicity's sake). That's just paying rent, wrapped up with a requirement to have that much capital.
Very far from free rent. You give up interest rates, which in a country with high interest rates, is a lot. In Brazil for example the situation is weird. Its worth buying a house if you don't have the money for it. And its not worth buying a house, if you have the money for it. I explain:
- You want a house worth $500,000. You dont have the money. Rent is around $3,000. But if you buy it, you pay like $2,500 per month for the bank. Hence better buy than rent.
- You want a house worth $500,000. You have the money. Buy it? No. You invest that in a very conservative investment, and you get $5,000 a month in interest rates. With that you pay the rent and still have income left. If reinvested, your income will only grow. So better rent.
This is how it works when interest rates are high and the market don't fully align. So say rent basically free, because you get your full money back in 2 years makes no sense, because you are giving up a lot of interest rates.
what kind of investment give you 1% a month O_o
@@JobyFluorine-ru4bd he's one of those trust fund kids
People should get a loan and invest it.
@@sampajam6256 Government bonds pay 10% per year therefore corporate bonds should get you to 1% a month.
@@JobyFluorine-ru4bd do you live in Brazil? No, them shut up
The mega corporations in South Korea are like something out of Blade Runner. I lived there in 2014 as an English teacher, and I can attest that saying these giant corporate conglomerates own everything is no exaggeration. Most Americans have probably never heard of Naver, Lotte, or Hanhwa, but in S. Korea these are just a small sample of companies that have everything from their own theme parks, baseball teams, cafes, or in some cases even entire towns.
Cyberpunk 2077 is just South Korea with cyborgs
Not really. Most of these places use the brand name but ownership is not a crazy %. It's not too different from the United States honestly, you'd be surprised to find out about which companies own what there (because they don't share the same name and are subsidiary of subsidiaries, it's not as obvious)
Not to mention, people spend their whole youths trying to get into these companies. It's literally their life goal, nothing else that comes after is going to be as big for them. Cyberpunk checks out.
@@NoteCat540Yeah no, not their life goal. Any company with good pay and welfare will do. That's why chaebols are popular. They give you good paychecks and has good employee welfare. That's it. Not anything out of "loyalty" for a huge corporation.
If somewhere else pays better and has better working conditions, people would want to go there. It doesn't always have to be family owned conglomerates. People might favor working in IT companies, non chaebol companies, or public compaines if they find it better.
And no one wants to work at small companies because they treat you like shit, and has horrible work conditions. The 'evil' megacorporations treat their employees much better.
@@NoteCat540 I was just about to comment this same thing. Something that is likely viewed as a "dead end job" in the US is the highest ambition of status in South Korea. An office position at a massive corporate company is a goal, rather than an ending point because either your small business idea or dreams of becoming a famous actor did not pan out.
This situation is surprising because it’s so strange
The same happens in India, called the pagdi system. The tenant pays lakhs and the contract is for 1 year. Although I have not heard this being used for high valued properties but it is definitely used for Barracks. I live in Mumbai and have seen this first hand and even have relatives who have given their houses like this.
the banks hate this trick: don''t pay rent, just buy it!
they actually love it because you dont buy with liquidity but with a loan, even if you have the money
When you compare rent to non-equity expenses, taxes, insurance, etc., of buying there are many many instances where renting is actually cheaper... You're not throwing your money away
Then why doesn't the landlord sell? They're losing money.
Can you provide examples, I am interested. And you are talking about USA only or also some other places? I heard there is a tax on land in USA, so after buying your own house you still need to pay somewhere(in this case probably local community via a land tax?)
@@nietur They're assuming that the housing market value will rise, thereby increasing the value of their investment. But it's never guaranteed that it will.
@@grammar_shark Expected housing price appreciation has to be included in the caluclation of renting vs. buying.
Exactly! Repairs and upkeep alone can eat any appreciation and you're stuck with an aging property. Renters can just move to a nicer home.
It's impossible for housing prices to continue increasing exponentially in the U.S, this is another bubble that inevitably will burst sooner or later. That's why landlords love the "housing shortage," which decreases tenants' options.
This video would benefit from a quick refresher on opportunity cost. The concept of 전세 is the purest example of this.
No such thing as throwing away money on rent--you're paying for a place to live. There's significant opportunity cost in saving up a down payment then paying down a loan for 30 years vs being able live cheaper (basically every major US city is cheaper to rent than own for equivalent property) and invest the difference in assets that generally provide a better ROI than a home (like stocks).
The Jeonse system simply put it is like a ponzischeme that no one in Korea thought it would eventually become fraudulent. Outsider who come to Korea have known this system would eventually be a major problem, but in Korea at one point the system was like a national pride only in a country like Korea a jeonse system would ever exist.
Simply put it. With government lending support,
For the past 50 years, landlords have bought up apartment complex using bank loans of up to 70-80%. Landlords will use the lump sum jeonse lease to pay off their debts and repay the tenants, by using new tenants jeonse money to pay off their previous tenant just like a ponzi scheme. It still goes on today. Citizens in Korea win apartment units from developers following government guidelines and eventually lease the apartment if they can’t afford to pay off their remaining balance.
If you put it like that then all banks are also ponzi schemes. The only difference is legality
So, basically like the US mortgage system?
@@MCArt25 it’s nothing like the US mortgage system.
How did they get the money to pay for 90% deposit in the first place if they couldn't get loan back then ?
19th
Other relatives.
family - generational wealth and bank loans
Their parents. Koreans give their children massive inheritance (especially sons) upon coming of age. Also Koreans are totally dependent on their parents for a long time into adulthood. Most Koreans live with their parents until marriage and that's nowadays not until 30s.
He answers it in the video. They get it as a low interest loan from banks, which they pay back after they get the deposit back.
This is not just common in South korea it's also very common in India specially Karnataka so here my family paid money to one of the landlord as lease so they will return is the money within couple of years .The reason they do that is bcs they get the capital without paying a single penny as interest they just return the people without interest just the principal amount had they taken the amount from bank they had to pay 8-9% intrest rate over a period of 10 -15 years so this the approach they take
Really? I live in India too, In Delhi we pay our rent monthly + maintenance, is it common in Karnataka?
@@philoslother4602 very common but u need a good initial capital see if you want to lease a 3bhk u need 50-60 lakhs in hand although u will get it back
@@philoslother4602 He is talking about deposit
This is common in Delhi too. I have seen people do that quite often
Also in Iran.
a common scam in korea is the landlord simply not paying back their loans. and there is nothing you can do about it even if you sue them and win they will say they have no money and you wont get your money back.
Then you should get the property, and the law should come down with f***ing hard prison time on the landlord because they stole $1,000,000
This is partially correct.
You can take the landlord to court and as the person living in the house and having paid 전세, you claim ownership of the property, the issue is that if the landlord really is bankrupt other creditors will also be trying to reclaim assets from the landlord, so the property will go up for auction and it's likely the banks will get a large share of the sale of the property.
You can then by law stay in the apartment indefinitely
@aaronpugliese no because the scammer sells their house to a 3rd party so the house doesnt belong to the scammer by the time you need to get your money back. So you cant get your money back and you cant keep the house
That's pretty common in Europe, too, except it happens with deposits instead.
I like the way this video starts with a building I saved as a background picture on my laptop - the one I'm actually watching this video from
I live in Korea. My deposit is 80k USD and rent is 200USD and its a mix of this Jeonsae and regular rent. With this system I'm able to stack money and save like crazy cuz I didn't need a loan for that 80k.
The downside is that my place isn't mine, not big enough if I want to start a family, or in the best condition.
13:35 I like how this stock footage is played backwards. Just look at the car and truck going backwards in that intersection at the center 😂
I guess he really needed the dramatic zoom out effect. Hilarious catch.
Hey, I just wanted to say that the quality and analysis of information in your videos improved tremendously in the last year. Great work!
So Jeonse is where the landlord have to play a modified Ponzi Scheme
They don't "have to", they like it that way.
1:19 hey those are the Samnick Towers in Busan! I used to live there in 2014, they’re pretty old by Korean standards (built in the late 70s), so I only paid $275 USD per month (no Jeonse, no key money, no deposit). 2 bedroom apartment too.
This system must be very difficult for people of lower economic status. How are young people able to afford this if their family isn’t capable of supporting them financially?
It’s called leasing!! It’s not something uncommon or novelty of South Korea!!
but in korea you pay the 90% up front. quite high and egregious rates compared to your standard lease. for most without the use of banks. its the conglomerate tenant and you directly
They can't call it leasing (government tax stuff). That's the novel thing. The structure they came up with IS trying to replicate a lease but without government.
@@jai-kk5uu"without government"
They literally created this system.
@@daeseongkim93normally more like 50~60%
Leasing still means you have to pay rent doesn't it?
It's weird that we don't have good words in English to describe this arrangement. You're not exactly "paying" anyone because you'll get the money back. However, you do have to put down a large sum of money as a deposit in exchange for getting to live there. Or in other words, you have to lend money in exchange for the use of the property.
You aren't throwing away money on rent. You're paying for housing. The only factor that dominates rent vs own is time in one place. The longer one stays, the more the math favors "owning" (renting from the bank). The shorter one stays, the more the math favors renting.
Actually, even that isn't true in almost all cases. Owning involves lots of other hidden costs that most people don't factor into, such as repairs, maintenance, etc. Owning basically never makes sense unless you want to just do a lifestyle play.
Yea owning has issues and in America you could honestly make a ton of money while renting.
@@tstcikhthysproperty tax lol. If u can’t pay that the government will take ur crib. Nothing is free basically. Unless u have like stuff to cover ur back. Social safety nets of a government etc.
@@dencentbeatz794 Yup, just pick the cheapest way to finance housing. Own or rent. And it nearly ALWAYS comes down to the single biggest factor, which is how long one is going to stay in a place. 20 years basically always cheaper to rent money from the bank to "buy". In between 2 and 20 years, it depends on the market.
The catch is that the home owner bets on the rising property and "rent" values, in order to not have the whole system fall apart around you, as everyone is over leveraged thanks to a combination of government regulation and greed.
Wait. Am I still describing Korea or the rest of the Western World?
3:34 - “loans were so cheaply handed out”
6:40 - “high interest rates make buying homes unaffordable”
not sure if I missed something here, but how can interest rates on loans be low and high at the same time?
They're loans for different people. The first was low interest loans specially offered to corporations, to spur development. The second is the general commercial interest rates for ordinary people.
When he's talking about handing out loans, I believe it's in reference to the government originating loans to the chaebol, which would have been at more favorable rates than the open market.
Great work bro!!
Its not quite as bleak as the video suggests. There's such a thing as jeonse insurance. While you can't get it for all types of houses. It costs around $1500, but it means that if your landlord can't give you the money back, the insurance will, and then you chase the landlord together.
There are also ways of checking how many debtors they have for the house so you can ensure that if they go bankrupt you'll likely get your money back.
So on some level you do have to trust, but there are precautions you can take.
So so well said about TH-cam and Nebula!
Just wanted to say that you did a great job on the video. My husband is from South Korea, he is fluent in both Korean and English, and he thought you explained it quite well. Please make more videos on Korea and other international events too!
Great title. It’s not misleading click bait but it tels you enough to get you interested to click on it. Because there is a catch
During my 26 yrs in the military I was in South Korea for a total of 7 years. They call it “Key Money”. I can tell you it’s a very nice country with very nice people. If you work in the economy they take a large amount and invest it. It’s mandatory and when you leave they give it back with interest. The military sent me all over Korea and during the weekends I’d jump on a train or bus and get off at any city away from English speakers. I learned to speak and to read and made a lot of friends❤ It’s a very nice country and a lot of fun!!!🎉🎉🎉
I used to live in free housing back in USSR. But there was a catch...
Yeah I've been in Soviet blocks before as I'm Slavic myself and uh. They're just concrete blocks that happen to have caves in them where you can live
The 4 asian tigers
Taiwan: military dictatorship
Singapore: benevolent dictatorship
Korea: military dictatorship
HK: colonial dictatorship
Still more affordable than a shack in Vancouver or Toronto
Love the content thank you for it all! Ahhh!
They have to pay interest on those loans each month and, presumably, can't get other loans as a result. Or: they can't otherwise deploy that capital to invest it and so lose value to inflation.
12:20 Not important but it’s funny that you used broadcasting company building as a ultimate goal housing 😂
Saying that rent is throwing money away is like saying that buying food is throwing money away because you eat the food and then it comes out the other end.
Rent can’t be throwing money away unless you genuinely believe that being homeless is a viable option
The "throwing away money" stuff is rich people brain. Rich people think of everything as investment, so everything they buy needs to return their investment. Houses aren't places where you live, houses are investments that need to return their value over time, either by selling or renting out to other people. The American housing market is what you get when you infect an entire country with rich people brain when it comes to shelter.
We have had this practise in India for pretty long. It's called 'home leasing' and it's still being practised.
As a landlord is this situation wouldn't it be better to just give the tenant the deed of the apartment they live in if for whatever reason you cannot afford to pay it back, just have as a legally binding contract at least for the tenants protection.
I think the issue is that you use the homes as collateral on loans that you need to finance further purchases, and so others are in line to collect your debts if you go bankrupt. You own 100 properties, funded by a combination of deposits and bank loans. They all need to be liquidated into a common pool and then distributed back out, and you've probably given the banks some guarantee of priority in your loan contracts. The reason the system is cheap for the tenants is because they are the ones contractually absorbing the risk.
@@DeathsOnTheYAxis sounds like a house of cards, like when do you get to the point as a landlord where you no longer owe money on the houses?
@@samkelo27 I don't think they care about getting the loans down to zero. They just care that the assets are greater than the debts. When they have enough assets they get another loan and keep it going.
You obviously don't do it forever though. Over infinite time you're guaranteed to go bankrupt. You do it until you're rich and then you start winding things down, diversifying etc. Sometimes they take it too far and lose everything. Sometimes they get unlucky. That's kinda the whole game. If it wasn't risky everyone would do it.
Why would a landlord give a shit about the tenant's protection?
It's free¹ real estate!
¹For the purposes of this assignment, assume inflation and interest rates are 0%.
south korea's low birth rate and almost no immigration will deal with rising housing prices there
It will also lead to demographic collapse and a ruined economy. You need workers to pay for all the OAPs.
No it won't. Houses don't last forever. Even if the population is declining, the housing stock is also declining. The result is prices that are at best stagnant and at worst, growing rapidly.
Most developed countries have low birth rates yet house prices keep going up everywhere. It doesn't have to do with actual demands, it's because of speculation.
@@dyasion most developed countries have rising populations due to immigration
I love this channel!
Interesting start 👌🏾
Overall it’s a pretty good system that expedites the ownership of a home for many people. Outside of Seoul spacious apartments are very reasonably priced…with the lower interest rate climate a blend of a smaller deposit and monthly rent is becoming the norm which is manageable for many people..
In my country (Russia) , property value doesn't change much with time. Apartment in some 30 year old building could cost the same as in a new apartment
I didnt knew nebula sponsored this building
where would the tenet would get 30%-90% to deposit and if you already have enough why not get a mortgage
The loan is still slightly cheaper but more likely bc the same shortcomings as owning a house here in the US: property taxes, maintenance, repairs, less flexibility to move, etc. Plus from what the vid makes it seem, this system mostly applies to Seoul which is almost entirely apartments, so you would be buying only a box on someone else’s land, plus you’d likely have to pay a monthly community fee to the complex like a condo or HOA.
I'm surprised no Korean politician has proposed to build a city far from Korea's metro area closer to the coast with tax breaks, build lots of affordable housing, a metro system, etc. It'd dyanmise the economy and improving the standards of living
They have. They created a planned city called Sejong. People opted to commute from Seoul.
Just a variant on fractional reserve banking. It has the same instability for down turns. No deposit insurance.
We actually have this same concept in Afghanistan. The landlords can't loan their money to a bank because of a lack of interest-savings accounts but I'm sure they use that money either to invest or to cover major expenses.
This also goes a long way to explain why couples aren't having kids there. It requires couples to both be working. No time for babies and rearing children.
15:12 As an avid Wendover, Jetlag and HaI viewer, this is the first time I've heard of this travel reality show called The Getaway... I have the feeling there was a misunderstanding of the public announcement and Sam got accidentally robbed to make this announcement himself 😄
What a disaster! But it really isn’t any worse than what we do in Australia. In Australia you get a loan to buy a house. Then when you have enough income you leverage your first home to buy another with another loan. Then you keep doing that. The longer it goes on, the more impossible it becomes to buy a home, even with a loan.
Thats incredible, here in my country Bolivia, have a very similar option, we call it "anticretico" and touhgt nobody else in the world had it.
In this scenario, you should just have the apartment be collateral for the loan, if the owner can’t pay the deposit back, then the tenant can get the apartment
if the landlord defaults on the loan, would you in default takeover the property?
Yes,I believe it’s put on auction and the tenant gets senior claims
The Catch: You have the world's sketchiest and most unhinged neighbor
Well I already live in Canada...
Ukraine and Pakistan would beg to differ.
the idea that your neighbour is some weirdo if you buy an apartment is the most american individualist thing ive ever heard.
@@sanitygone-l9y I think she's referring to DPRK and not the actual neighbor in the apartment complex
@@houndofculann1793 oh wait, youre right LOL
As a Scotman I worked with used to say "if it's free how much does it cost?"
US$1.8?
To buy?
Three bedroom, living room, proper kitchen/dining ensemble, a proper entertainment room and lobby, 2,000 square feet
Coming from Sydney, that's not half bad.
I'd have to learn Korean, though.
Real estate is a scam no matter the country. Don’t overvalue a concrete block.
China will successfully raise their birth rate with affordable housing.
It's already happening. Xi Jinping has already prioritized affordable housing and the birth rate crisis is due to high housing costs.
China will stop housing speculation and it will be the best economic play since Deng Xiaoping in the 80s.
"40% of renters in Korea are paying zero dollars"
Probably more, given how housing works in the North.
That's a crazy setup in South Korea, I had no idea. I could never give somebody $500,000 I'd always be worried I wouldn't get the money back.
It's just renting with extra steps...
We do it in our country to but high inflation is making it too expensive just imagine you have to add 30%-50% to your deposit each year with no actual hope of buying your own house
This Korean system is actually way more beneficial for tenants as it helps them build equity even though they don't own anything yet
i like that idea!!
First video where I feel like a huge part of the answer is missing, if you get a loan from the bank for the deposit then you are paying interests instead of paying rent. And if you had the cash, then you are giving it away for 2 years and not getting interest on it
That doesn't make sense economically... If you can get a loan for 90% then just buy a smaller house and own 🤷🏼
Instead of the government subsidizing loans, wouldn’t it be better to subsidize construction of housing? Treat the cause, not the symptoms
Again super good video from the best creator on this plattform. Keep up the good worl
So the answer is the opportunity cost (interest) of a loan to the landlord. This is exactly same as elite schools in Hong Kong who require parents pay huge bonds while their kids go to their school, again to get around school fee caps.
Sounds like a bubble 🫧
Excellent sharing, thanks
You say that the system might work better because they are not paying rent while saving up for a down payment. But they are. They've got to make the payment on that loan.
The price of that 2000 sqare foot apartment at ~1.8 million is quite reasonable by housing standards in Canada right now. Mobile homes with 1200 sq.ft. go for roughly 10% of that soooo....
So if the landlord dies his family is not required to pay from the inheritance?
Seems like a nice system, I wanna try it out in london
We have a very similar deposit system in Iran called "rahn" often for a mere %10-%20 of the value of the propety in Tehran.. This kind of system usually happens in high-interest, high-inflation environments. Where money now is worth a lot more than money in the future because it can be invested in asset bubbles not only retaining it's original purchasing power but sometimes surpassing it! Theoretically, a house should be worth exactly as much as it produces rent. Any more and it's due to speculation which is a lot less in US than in Korea or Iran. what goes up must eventually come down. Making this system necessarily unstable without continual government Intervention.
have you heard of opportunity cost, this is the cost of your rent
So wouldn’t the solution to your landlord dying or going bust on paying you back your deposit be they sign the property over to you? You are owed its full value, boom, now it’s yours and you don’t go homeless. Probably because that would be fair to the renter and no system allows for that.
That is the normal case. But many of the "sketchy" houses have loans attached with bankers having 1st dibs.
These bastards rather see you rot in hell, then do the right thing
Yeah, giving the tenant this security would be a solution. But the landlord could also give the property to a bank as security for a loan and then get the deposit on top. If the landlord is credit worthy, the bank won't have high interests in the first place.
@@HdbeWydvd Is it? Do you have any sources about it?
@@nietur I thought the whole point was it’s hard to for owners to get bank loans? Or did that also fall away over time?
The video is interesting but the title and the last sentence are factually wrong. If you pay upfront for an apartment that you dont own at all, it is a rent. Hence it is not free as they dont pay you back the interests
Me, a 28 year old hoping to buy a single family hole with a white picket fence and a two car garage: this is strangely relatable all of a sudden
so basically, the "risk" is now with the bank instead of the landlord. lol
Its actually good if you have that kind of down payment although it does beat the purpose as well if you end up taking loan increasing even bigger risk. It sounds good but not very safe with current economy as well as risk stated in the video.
If you have that money already, why not invest it yourself then, why the additional risk + inflation loss? it's more expensive then, especially if it's a bank loan.
"Rent is throwing away money" is a wives tale. Rent is spending money on housing just like homeowners spend money on housing (the later is simply more convoluted so people incorrectly think the homeowner is living "for free")
Yes, but because we allow land prices to inflate the renter is excluded from any potential capital gains which as a homeowner they would otherwise acquire (or conversely the renter avoids negative equity when the bubble bursts)
Can you make a video about the South East Asia heat wave and how it would affect the countries residing it and it's people.
At the end of the day, all the side effects are passed down from the 30 year long miltary dictatorship of Junghee Park and Doohan Jeon. They are responsible for the high interest loans from wealthier nations and built projects that were too premature for Korea at that time. Their ambitions have eventually caused IMF to step in and so many companies went bankrupt. Their failure in currency reform and the creation of regional conflicts due to tyranny and oppression have subsequently led to generational conflicts, gender conflicts, high-density urbanization in the capital region, high suicide rates, low happiness index, and the world’s lowest birth rate.
0:20 Lotte World looks like a very good theme park, but the rollercoaster collection is subpar. Gyeongju World (two good B&Ms - a dive and an invert) and Everland (T-Express, plus like Lotte World, it's also quite a pretty park).
But this isn't really relevant to the video.
Squid Game makes a lot more sense now.
But it's only for 2 years so I guess you need plans to move the fuck out by then
There is a big red button clause that screams f landlord I live two more years.
yea it’s only free for 2 years but still this is such a good step in the right direction
You could stay and renew the contract but property owner can raise the deposit by a max of 5% if I'm correct
Technically, the rent is not free. They paid one lump sum to live for several years. They may not get back the full amount if the landlord want them to pay for "wear and tear".
The question then is: why can't you just invest the money yourself and use your gains to pay monthly rent?