Yuk recounts missing out on real estate deal on MBC's 'Radio Star'

Property in Mangwon-dong now valued at 4 billion won as Mangnidan-gil boomed

Singer Yuk Joong-wan. [Newsis]
Singer Yuk Joong-wan. [Newsis]

Singer Yuk Joong-wan of the band Yuk Joong-wan Band has revealed that a building in Mangwon-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul — where Yuk once lived in a rooftop room — was offered at a price that has since risen fivefold.

Yuk appeared on MBC's entertainment program "Radio Star," which aired Wednesday, to share updates on life. The Busan-born singer spent years as an unknown artist before gaining public recognition through MBC's "I Live Alone," where Yuk documented daily life in a rooftop room in Mangwon-dong.

Yuk said that in 2016, while preparing to move ahead of marriage, the building's owner approached with an offer to buy the property.

"I got along so well with the Mangwon-dong residents that we even shared banchan — they treated me like family," Yuk said on the program. "When they heard I was getting married, they said, 'You don't have a place, do you?' and introduced me to a prime listing, telling me not to move away but to buy."

One day, Yuk said, the elderly owner of the rooftop building came to visit and said: "This is a bargain. I won't sell it to anyone else — I'll let it go to you for 850 million won ($636,000)."

"I told the owner I had 300 million won in cash, and the owner even walked me through how to take out a loan," Yuk said. "But I didn't know much about investing and got scared, so I turned it down." Yuk added that the owner came back two or three more times after that. "That building is now worth 4 billion won on the market — five times what it was," Yuk said, expressing regret.

"It wasn't just that building," Yuk said. "The owner of a pawnshop and a hair salon owner also came to me and said I should buy — back then, a plot of land around 165 square meters was going for about 600 million won."

The area where Yuk lived at the time is now understood to be at the entrance of Mangnidan-gil, a neighborhood that has since become a popular commercial district.


jshan@heraldcorp.com