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The macroeconomic promise of South Korea as a premier destination for global talent, digital nomads, and exchange students has long faced an unyielding gatekeeper: the domestic real estate system.
For decades, the traditional Jeonse (massive key-money deposits) and high-deposit Wolse (monthly rent) systems have created an invisible financial barrier for international arrivals. Without a local guarantor or tens of thousands of dollars in upfront cash, foreigners frequently find themselves locked out of standard housing, relegated instead to claustrophobic goshiwons (tiny study rooms) or vulnerable peer-to-peer sublets on Craigslist.
We had a conversation with Junghoon Oh, the founder of Enkostay, on how a compliance-first, mid-term housing platform is bypassing traditional rental friction.
From an “Accidental” Co-Living Project to a Global Moat
Q: Korea’s rental systems act as a steep financial barrier for foreigners. Was Enkostay born out of a macro-level strategy to capture the digital nomad market, or was it a response to a specific personal friction point?
Junghoon Oh: Enkostay actually started as a co-living business for foreigners, not as a deliberate answer to any macro trend. The origin moment was in 2017 when I visited a university campus in Seoul and was struck by how many international students were there. Out of curiosity, I started asking them about life in Korea, and almost every single one brought up the same thing: finding a place to live here was incredibly hard. The deposits were impossible to afford, and no landlord would sign a lease for less than a year. Students ended up living in goshiwons or scrambling to find roommates on Craigslist to split the cost.
Hearing this over and over, I realized it was a real problem worth solving and decided to start a co-living business as a side project. I opened our first share house, and inquiries came in faster than I could handle. As we kept opening new locations, I realized it had outgrown a side project and needed to become a proper platform and ecosystem. That’s when I incorporated the company and went all in.
The business wasn’t originally designed to be a global hub for digital nomads, but as we scaled, we naturally grew into that position.
– Junghoon Oh, CEO Enkostay
The problem we solved in Korea turned out to be the same challenge foreigners face in Japan, Singapore, and across the region. That’s why we are now evolving into a mid-term housing platform for foreigners across APAC, starting with our Japan launch later this year.
Navigating the Post-Airbnb Regulatory Squeeze
Q: With the latest regulatory crackdowns on unlicensed short-term rentals in Korea, many inbound travelers have been left stranded. How does Enkostay’s model remain resilient while casual hosting platforms are getting squeezed out?
Junghoon Oh: The specific legal issue is that hosts without a proper lodging license cannot legally rent rooms to foreigners for stays under 14 days, nor can they provide bedding or hygiene amenities. To operate on platforms like Airbnb, you need that license. However, the property types best suited for short-term rentals—one-room and two-room officetels (studio apartments)—simply don’t qualify for it under local zoning laws. Platforms quietly tolerated unlicensed hosts until recently, but now those hosts have been pushed out.
Here is the key workaround: unlicensed hosts can still do short-term rentals legally if they rent for 14 days or longer and do not provide bedding or hygiene items.
That is exactly the gap Enkostay solves. Our hosts don’t provide bedding themselves. When guests book a room, we offer a separate bedding purchase option, and a fresh set is delivered directly to the unit, timed to their check-in. The host stays fully compliant with the law, and the guest still gets a move-in-ready home. Enkostay acts as the compliance bridge that lets hosts operate legally without breaking regulations while giving foreign guests access to vital housing inventory.
The Shift in Seoul’s Digital Geography
Q: You have a front-row seat to where foreigners choose to live. Is the traditional ‘foreigner map’ of Seoul shifting away from classic hubs like Itaewon or Hongdae toward more local neighborhoods?
Junghoon Oh: Long-term foreign residents and inbound tourists are at all-time highs, but the concentration within Seoul hasn’t fundamentally shifted. The neighborhoods that have always drawn foreigners—Hongdae, Jongno, Gangnam, Itaewon, and Seongsu—remain the dominant magnets.
What is happening is more subtle.
The hotspots aren’t losing gravity; rather, the overall pie of incoming foreigners is growing so fast that booking volume is spilling over into residential districts that previously had zero foreign presence. It is less a migration story and more an overflow story.
– Junghoon Oh, CEO Enkostay
Real dispersion only happens when those surrounding areas become inherently foreigner-friendly in terms of infrastructure, everyday services, and language accessibility. Without that, people default back to the hubs where life is easier. That’s why we are onboarding hosts well outside the usual circuit—like Gangdong-gu or Nowon-gu in Seoul, and regional areas like Gangwon and Gyeongsang. By pairing housing with our Enkoplay community layer and tours, we are building the soft infrastructure that allows a foreigner to actually live in those places, not just pass through. The map changes from the supply side first.
Dismantling the “Immigration Bureaucracy” Friction Point
Q: The Residence Card (formerly the ARC) is mandatory for long-term life in Korea, yet getting the landlord documentation required to register it is famously difficult. How does Enkostay solve this bottleneck?
Junghoon Oh: To get a Residence Card, foreigners must register their address at the local district office. This requires a specific set of documents from the host: a copy of their ID, proof of property ownership, and a signed lease contract.
The friction point here is trust.
– Junghoon Oh, CEO Enkostay
When a foreign tenant suddenly asks an ordinary landlord for their personal ID and property papers, most landlords get nervous about scams and refuse. The tenant gets stuck—they have an apartment but cannot complete the immigration step required to unlock basic necessities like opening a bank account or signing up for a phone plan.
We solve this on the host side before the tenant ever has to ask. During onboarding, we walk hosts through exactly why these documents are required for registration. Once they understand it’s a standard immigration step, they upload the documents to our system in advance. The guest simply downloads the soft copies directly from their booking dashboard. Combined with our digitally signed lease contracts, the user walks into the district office with a complete, friction-free documentation package.
The 2026 Data Pulse: Decentralizing the “New Korea Traveler”
Q: What does your current platform data tell us about the evolution of stay lengths and traveler demographics in 2026 compared to previous years?
Junghoon Oh: Our average stay length has shortened slightly, from roughly 85 days two years ago to about 71 days today, but that metric alone is misleading. The decline is driven by an influx of leisure travelers using Enkostay for one-month-plus stays, pulling the mathematical average down. Underneath that surface metric, our long-stay segment is accelerating rapidly.
Contracts of three to six months are growing fast, and the share of users selecting “remote work” or “workcation” is rising consistently. Tourists are staying longer than they used to, and digital nomads are showing up in real numbers alongside traditional exchange students.
Mapo-gu (the Hongdae/Sinchon belt) saw the biggest absolute growth, with bookings nearly doubling (+97%). However, the sharpest acceleration over the last six months came from urban business cores and alternative hubs:
| District / Region | Booking Growth Rate (Past 6 Months) | Primary Demographic Driver |
|---|---|---|
| Yeongdeungpo (Yeouido) | +253% | Remote Workers / Exchange Professionals |
| Jung-gu (Myeongdong) | +245% | Long-stay Leisure / Nomads |
| Yongsan | +145% | Corporate / Long-term Residents |
| Mapo-gu (Hongdae/Sinchon) | +97% | Exchange Students / Creative Nomads |
| Busan | +204% | Digital Nomads / Second Hub Seekers |
This tells us the ‘New Korea Traveler’ is shifting from student belts toward Seoul’s business cores, with Busan emerging as a genuine second hub for mid-term residential stays.
Navigating Strategic Roadblocks & Investor Objections
Q: What were the most challenging objections or rejections you faced from financial partners while scaling this business model?
Junghoon Oh: From investors, the most common rejection was that foreigners make up only a small fraction of Korea’s population, meaning the market ceiling felt too low to scale a massive venture. That pushback is precisely what sharpened our globalization thesis.
If the Korean market alone isn’t big enough, our real moat has to be cross-border. The housing issues foreigners face in Korea aren’t unique to Seoul; they are the exact same challenges international arrivals face in Japan, Singapore, and across the region. That is why we are launching in Japan and building Enkostay as a regional APAC platform from day one, rather than a single-country player.
The Power of Connection Over Pure Tech
Q: Beyond the numbers, what is the one story of a traveler whose life was fundamentally transformed because they found a home through your platform?
Junghoon Oh: This goes back to our early days running physical share house units before we transitioned fully into an open platform. Back then, I used to host regular rooftop parties and gatherings for our tenants.
One moment has stayed with me. A guest who was checking out thanked me for the events because they allowed him to meet people he never would have crossed paths with otherwise. He lived in Dongdaemun-gu and told me he had no real way to meet anyone from Seodaemun-gu until one of our parties. The friend he met there ended up becoming his lifelong best friend. He told me Korea could have felt cold and intimidating, but because of those gatherings, it felt warm, and he was genuinely grateful. That single conversation was worth more than any platform metric.
Building a “Soft Moat” in an Era of Deep Tech
Q: How does a startup like Enkostay defend its market share against billion-dollar local real estate incumbents like Zigbang or Dabang if they decide to launch global verticals?
Junghoon Oh: We are an IT platform, not a cutting-edge deep tech or generative AI company. While we adopt and embed AI tools rapidly to maximize efficiency, that isn’t a permanent moat. A well-funded incumbent with a massive engineering bench can easily copy technology features, pricing models, or supply.
Our real moat is rooted in experience and emotional alignment. What stayed with the tenant I mentioned wasn’t the software interface; it was that Enkostay made his life abroad feel warmer and happier than expected. That is a completely different category of value.
– Junghoon Oh, CEO Enkostay
Our mission statement is “Bridge foreigners to locals.” Every product choice, UI design, and user journey is filtered through that lens. We aren’t asking how to close more bookings; we are asking how to make a stranger in a foreign country feel a little less alone. It’s a soft moat that is hard to put on a pitch deck slide, but it is exactly what users feel over time and why they keep choosing us.
About Enkostay
Enkostay is a Korea-based mid-term housing platform built to eliminate traditional rental barriers for foreign travelers, students, and digital nomads. By offering zero-deposit, move-in-ready accommodations paired with soft community infrastructure, Enkostay transforms a rigid domestic real estate market into a borderless residential experience as it scales its model across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.
- Website: https://stay.enko.kr/
- Connect with Junghoon Oh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jung-hoon-oh-61266b169/
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