Announcer Cho Su-bin. [Herald DB]
Announcer Cho Su-bin. [Herald DB]

Cho Su-bin, a former anchor of KBS's flagship 9 p.m. newscast, has deleted a YouTube video featuring a housewarming visit to a junior announcer's newly built apartment in Banpo, southern Seoul, after the clip drew a wave of questions about how the property was financed.

The video, titled "A Banpo new-build apartment bought penny by penny," was uploaded to Cho's YouTube channel "Cho Su-bin Curation" on Sunday but had been taken down as of Tuesday.

The clip showed Cho visiting a unit at Maple Jais in Jamwon-dong, Seocho-gu — a new development built on the site of the Sinbanpo District 4 reconstruction project — where a junior announcer working at a general programming cable channel lives. The two discussed how the younger woman came to own the home.

The asking price for the standard 84-square-meter unit at the complex exceeds 5 billion won ($3.41 million).

Cho asked her junior colleague, "Announcers don't earn that much — was there something that helped you buy a move-in rights unit in Banpo so quickly?"

The junior announcer replied, "For me, it was savings." When Cho asked whether she had invested in shares or cryptocurrency, she said she had not.

The explanation drew immediate skepticism in the comments, with many viewers saying it was unrealistic to claim the apartment was purchased through savings alone.

One commenter wrote that even a conservative purchase price of 1.6 billion won for the move-in rights would have required at least 160 million won as a down payment and a minimum of 900 million to 1 billion won in equity to cover the balance. Factoring in acquisition tax, brokerage fees and reconstruction surcharges, total funds of around 1.2 billion won would have been needed. "It's hard to accept that savings alone made this possible," the commenter said.

The same commenter added that the numbers only added up if the junior announcer had income from a spouse, existing assets, loans, a jeonse deposit or support from parents. "I'm more curious about how she built up her initial equity than about the 'penny by penny' story," the commenter wrote.

Cho replied in the comments, saying her junior colleague "had been working for a long time, had a dual income with her spouse, and had been doing index investment for years." She added that the purchase was made before regulations tightened further, that living costs had been kept to a minimum, and that while some parental support was involved, "it was not beyond what is socially normal."

Online critics pushed back, asking why the junior announcer had said she only saved if index investment had also played a role, and demanding a more accurate account.

Cho posted another comment, saying the purchase was made before the current surge in home prices and under a different regulatory environment. "I watched closely as she lived frugally, kept living costs to a minimum, and pursued aggressive asset-building with a capable husband while both were working," she said.

Responding to the ongoing questions, she also said she felt saddened that "people's hearts have lost their room to breathe in an era when buying a home has become this difficult."

The production team behind the channel also apologized, saying that in focusing on the housewarming concept, they had "failed to fully convey the values and context we intended to communicate," and that while they had wanted to show the subject's diligent lifestyle and investment philosophy, the editing had not reflected their intentions.

Commenters continued to criticize the video. Some said no one would have objected had the parental support or actual funding sources been disclosed from the outset. Others suggested the channel appeared to want the narrative of someone who had worked hard and saved on top of an already advantageous starting point. Still others said the story would have been more credible had it been framed as a property upgrade rather than a rags-to-riches purchase.

As the backlash continued, the production team ultimately made the video private.


jshan@heraldcorp.com