This article was posted on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 5:27 p.m. Oct. 30, 2025.
With the benchmark interest rate recently falling and strategic investors (SI) increasing transactions for actual demand purposes, office sales in the Bundang business district (BBD) are active.
According to the investment banking (IB) industry, KOREIT held a sale on the 27th for Humax Village, which it owns through K-One No. 16 REIT. Three bidders participated in the sale. They were Hanwha Vision, Sunkyung E&C which had Shinhan REITs Management as a financial investor (FI), and Mplus Asset Management.
In particular, Hanwha Vision and Sunkyung E&C entered the bidding as SIs with the aim of securing headquarters. Earlier this year, Hanwha Group also entered the bidding to acquire Dodam Building, which is a five-minute walk from this building, to secure a subsidiary headquarters. Hanwha Aerospace, once the same company as Hanwha Vision, also owns the Pangyo R&D campus in Sampyeong-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam. Logistics-specialized construction company Sunkyung E&C is headquartered in Giheung-gu, Yongin, Gyeonggi.
Humax Village at 216 Hwangsaeul-ro, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, is a rare large prime office in the Bundang business district (BBD). The building has six basement floors and 12 aboveground floors, with a total floor area of 44,595 square meters. It is a one-minute walk from Sunae Station on the Bundang Line and is regarded as a landmark office in the Bundang business district.
Humax, a first-generation domestic venture company, completed this building in 2006 and has used it as its headquarters until now. However, in 2021 Humax sold the building to KOREIT in a sale-and-leaseback transaction to secure cash for investment in its mobility business. The selling price at the time was about 220 billion won.
KOREIT acquired the building through K-One No. 16 REIT, established in May 2021. Although about two years remained until the collateral loan maturity, KOREIT selected RSquare and S-1 as sale advisers in September and decided on an early sale. In this process, it was reported that there was conflict between Korea Asset Management Corporation (KAMCO), the largest shareholder of the conservative REIT that favored an early sale, and other investors who opposed it.
Opinions differ in the industry over the selling price of Humax Village. An industry official said, the seller wants the early to mid-300 billion won range, but the prices offered by the bidders are lower, so they are considering it, and considering that office prices in the Bundang business district are forming in the high 10 million won per 3.3 square meters to the low 20 million won per 3.3 square meters range, roughly the mid-to-late 200 billion won range was mentioned.
Office building transactions have been active recently in the Bundang business district. According to GenstarMate, a domestic full-service commercial real estate company, cumulative office transaction volume in the Bundang business district through the third quarter this year was 2.2 trillion won. In the third quarter alone this year, transactions totaled 1.982 trillion won, marking the largest quarterly volume on record.
A representative example is the Pangyo Tech One Tower, which was sold this month. The selling price was about 2 trillion won, the highest price ever for office facilities in Pangyo. The buyer was a consortium of KakaoBank and Korea Investment Real Estate Asset Management, which use the building as their headquarters. Dodam Building near Humax Village also drew fierce competition from buyers seeking new headquarters. Clobot, an autonomous driving robot service specialist, teamed up with Kiwoom Asset Management and was selected as the preferred negotiating party for the sale, but it gave up the acquisition just before signing the contract.