A housing contract unique to Korea: instead of monthly rent, you deposit a large lump sum and get it all back when the lease ends. What's the name of this system that baffles newcomers most?

Jeonse is a rental structure found almost nowhere outside Korea: instead of paying rent every month, the tenant hands the landlord a single large deposit — often a substantial fraction of the property's market value — and gets that entire sum back when the lease ends. The landlord, meanwhile, invests or otherwise uses that lump sum during the lease period instead of collecting monthly income, which is the economic trade-off that makes the system work.

Wolse is the more familiar arrangement of a smaller deposit plus monthly rent, closer to what renters elsewhere expect, while Airbnb is simply a short-term booking platform unrelated to long-term lease structures.

Because jeonse ties up so much cash, protecting that deposit has become a major area of tenant-protection law and insurance products in Korea, especially after cases where landlords couldn't repay deposits during property downturns.