Waldheim offers new concept in townhouses

By Yoon Chul

Since the Korean War, South Korea has made rapid growth and its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was over $20,000 in 2010.

With the improved living standard, an increasing number of people tend to seek rustic life, escaping from the busy urban area filled with skyscrapers and apartments.

Riding on these growing needs, townhouses have begun to sprout in the vicinity of Seoul and its metropolitan area but many of them have not been available for ordinary citizens mainly due to high prices.

Park Jung-jin, 34, CEO of KEB D&C, a development and construction company, is building a cluster of townhouses named “Waldheim” in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Province, some 70 kilometer away from Seoul, to provide people with chances to acquire such properties at reasonable prices.

“My dream was to live in such a house surrounded by nature while enjoying leisure sports in a free atmosphere,” Park told The Korea Times.

“But most townhouses are too expensive for ordinary people. So I decided to build low-priced townhouses of high quality for people who have the same dream as me,” Park said.

“Waldheim and KEB D&C are not well-known brands so it may be hard for customers to trust them. But after visiting and looking around the houses, most of the customer express satisfaction and buy them,” he said.

The first Waldheim area was composed of 14 houses and all of them sold in 40 days last year.

The company plans to build 50 houses in a second area and has already sold 10 houses so far. “Our strength lies in offering quality houses at reasonable prices,” Park stressed.

Townhouses are built in a row, sharing walls with other properties, built in the same architectural style.

In Korea, most townhouses are located near Seoul and usually sell for over 1 billion won.

Waldheim properties however cost from just 400 million to 800 million won.

“The reason our product is much cheaper is we don’t rely on project financing and spend a small amount for promotional purposes, as well as having lower land prices,” he said.

“We use high quality building materials. When compared with other townhouses which cost about 1.5 billion won, I am sure that the quality of Waldheim is definitely not lower,” Park emphasized.

To reach Gapyeong it takes about an hour from Gangnam in Seoul and traffic has improved with the construction of a highway linking Seoul and Chuncheon, near Gapyeong.

Park pointed out the specific merits of Waldheim.

“The houses have the same outward appearance. But based on the customer’s desire, the structure of the inside can be changed as they have different internal structures. In other word, it is the owner’s unique house,” Park said.

He explained the location is very good for not only a first house but also a second home.

Waldheim has a big supermarket and international middle and high schools nearby, in addition to many golf clubs.

“When I started this business I didn’t do any benchmarking. I tried to adopt creative way in consideration of the stance of buyers, which gave birth to Waldheim. I will continue to maintain this stance to make Waldheim better townhouses,” Park said.

As a means of promoting the brand value of the company, Park, who loves sports, decided to form a golf team also called Waldheim. It is composed of Moon Hyun-hee, Cho A-ra, Lee Hye-in and the company spends over 300 million won per year on them. “Instead of famous golfers we decided to choose young players with potential. That is more meaningful and fruitful.”