Over 10,000 Real Estate Ads Found to Be False or Misleading

Over the past year, more than 10,000 real estate advertisements posted online have been identified as potentially illegal due to false or exaggerated claims. More than half of these ads misrepresented property information, including usage, size, and options.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, a total of 10,412 suspicious advertisements were detected from July of last year to June of this year during inspections of online real estate ads.

The inspections were conducted under the Real Estate Agent Law, delegated to the Korea Internet Advertising Foundation. Of the total, 9,383 ads were identified through ongoing monitoring based on public reports, while 1,029 were found through targeted monitoring of repeat offenders.

The ministry has notified local governments about the detected ads and requested follow-up actions, including fines and investigations. Under the Real Estate Agent Law, fines for improper advertising can reach up to 5 million won, while violations of disclosure obligations can incur fines of up to 500,000 won.

Among the 9,383 ads identified through ongoing monitoring, the most common violation was 'improper advertising,' which falsely listed property usage, size, and options, accounting for 5,201 cases (55.4%). 'Disclosure obligation violations,' which omitted essential information such as location, totaled 3,753 cases (40.0%), and 'unauthorized advertising' by individuals not licensed as real estate agents amounted to 429 cases (4.6%).

Examples of detected violations include cases where accommodations were misrepresented as single-family homes, properties with a mortgage of 1.2 billion won advertised as having no loan, and important information such as location and building code violations omitted. Additionally, there were instances where unqualified individuals, such as brokerage assistants and employees of distribution companies, directly advertised properties.

Shin Yoon-geun, the land policy director at the ministry, stated, "We will continue to strengthen monitoring of false and exaggerated real estate advertisements and do our utmost to create a transparent real estate market environment where everyone can conduct transactions with confidence."