Joil Kim, Professor of Spatial Systems Engineering, Handong Global University
It is an era in which the brand itself appeals first before the quality of the product. The brand image goes beyond quality and implies the dignity and lifestyle of users. A typical example is Apple. Rather than selling the products they make, this company seems to be selling the world they embodied. So, rather than simply being consumers, users become citizens of that world, sometimes slaves(?).
In Korea, apartments are also sold as brands. Apartments with unusual names and logos such as Hillstate, Xi, and Prugio are the mainstream. A brand in an apartment, which is real estate, not a product that comes and goes. It wasn’t like this from the beginning. Until the 1980s, there was no brand concept for apartments. In many cases, they did not even know who built them. Then, from the mid-1990s, the brand concept began to emerge. After starting with Samsung’s Raemian and Daelim’s e-Pyeonhansesang, it has reached the point where they are reluctant to rent apartments that are not branded by large corporations.
In hindsight, this is a very unusual phenomenon. An apartment is a real estate property that clearly distinguishes its location and environment. Even if they are built under the same brand, the conditions are different and there can be no identical products. So is the production method. Companies only focus on brand marketing, but the actual construction is often done through various subcontractors. Unlike manufacturing brands, where companies are responsible for everything from materials to finished products, it is a market with many variables. Nevertheless, in Korea, apartments are often chosen as brands. Even if you travel around the United States, Europe, and Japan, it is difficult to find a place dominated by apartment brands like Korea.
How should we view the extreme apartment branding only in Korea? There really isn’t a problem. The biggest concern is that brands create bubbles in housing prices. Just look at their advertisements. You can see that a huge amount of money is spent on image making. Every construction company not only uses the best actor of the time as a model, but also plasters them with advertisements regardless of media. The astronomical costs that go into this will inevitably lead to an increase in the pre-sale price.
Another problem is the excessive ‘luxuryization’ trend. They often engage in fierce competition to create a ‘luxury image’, which is the ultimate goal of a brand. As a result, all kinds of convenience facilities are now built in the complex. There are not a few apartments with excessive landscaping facilities, sports facilities, libraries, and even theaters. Of course it can’t be free. It also leads to a rise in housing prices, and also brings about the downfall of the surrounding commercial districts.
But lately, I think I need to add one more thing to these concerns. It is said that a splendid brand apartment on the outside may be sick on the inside. Recently, collapse accidents have continued in conglomerate brand apartments. In January of last year, a collapse accident occurred at Hyundai Development Company’s Gwangju I-Park, and this year, a parking lot at Geomdan Zai, built by GS E&C, collapsed. The one-sided trust in the brand is cracking as two representative construction companies cause major accidents about a year apart.
Now is the time to properly look at the falsehoods and truths hidden in the name of the apartment. Looking at it now, there are too many bubbles in the apartment brand. Wouldn’t the accident that followed be a signal that this kind of bubble should be cleansed once in a while? In the trend of declining population and increasing number of vacant houses, apartments are no exception. You never know when the bomb of hollowing out will fall on an apartment complex. Another problem is the perception of apartments as consumables that will be demolished and rebuilt after the reconstruction period has passed. In the end, this is because it becomes a factor that causes construction companies to perform poor construction. I think it is time to examine Korea’s apartment construction culture, overall, and remodeling and reconstruction.
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