Use of "real estate electronic contracts," which let people buy and sell homes or sign jeonse and monthly rent contracts online without complicated paperwork, topped 500,000 for the first time last year. That is more than double the previous year.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on the 22nd that real estate transactions concluded through electronic contracts totaled 507,431 last year. That is up 119.6% from 231,074 the year before.
The utilization rate of electronic contracts also jumped from the previous year, topping 10% for the first time at 12.04%. In particular, private brokerage transaction performance increased about 4.5 times (73,622→327,974), indicating a rapid spread from the public sector to the private market.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) has continued to push system improvements and expanded incentives to promote electronic contracts. In the second half of last year, it added a function to transmit contract information for rental guarantee screening by Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG) and enabled two-way contract revision linkage with the private brokerage platform "Hanbang," improving user transaction convenience. It also secured service stability by replacing servers to prepare for a surge in users.
Electronic contracts gained traction in part because actual transaction reports and confirmed date assignments are processed automatically without visiting government offices, and because buyers and tenants receive a 0.1–0.2 percentage point (p) interest rate cut when borrowing from commercial banks. Another reason for the higher utilization rate is that identity verification through accredited authentication during electronic contracts blocks unqualified brokerage at the source and helps prevent jeonse fraud.
Starting at the end of this month, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) will greatly expand identity verification methods to 15, including simple authentication by Naver, Kakao, and Toss, to improve access to electronic contracts. Previously, identity verification for real estate electronic contracts was only available through telecom providers, i-PIN, and joint certificates.
In addition, at the end of this month MOLIT, together with the Korea Real Estate Board (REB), will select and award 15 "outstanding licensed real estate agents of 2025" who contributed to promoting electronic contracts. This award was based on electronic contract utilization performance from November 2024 for one year. This year's grand prize (Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport commendation) winner concluded about 360 electronic contracts annually.
Park Jun-hyung, MOLIT's land policy director, said, "We will continue to improve the system and expand incentives to broaden the base for electronic contracts," adding, "We will do our best to create a digital environment where people can conduct real estate transactions more safely and conveniently."