How to Use Zigbang and Dabang in English: A Foreigner's Walkthrough

You've landed in Korea, your work visa is stamped, and someone has told you the same thing every relocation consultant, expat group, and Korean friend will tell you: "Just use Zigbang."

So you download Zigbang. The icon is friendly. The map opens. And then everything is in 한글.

This guide walks through exactly what you can do in English on Zigbang and Dabang — Korea's two biggest rental apps — what the apps quietly stop translating partway through, and what your realistic options are when the language wall finally arrives. You can absolutely find an apartment in Korea using these apps. You just need to know where the walls are before you hit them.

A quick note up front: HavenLens is a foreigner-focused rental service, so we have a horse in this race. But Zigbang and Dabang are good apps, we use them ourselves, and this is the same guide we'd give a friend moving to Seoul, app affiliation aside.

The two apps, briefly

Zigbang (직방) is Korea's largest rental app. Launched in 2012, it has millions of users across iOS and Android and inventory in every major city. It's the default for most Korean renters under forty.

Dabang (다방) is Zigbang's main competitor, also launched in 2012. It skews slightly younger, leans hard on one-room (원룸) inventory, and runs a verified-realtor program called 안심중개사.

There are other tools — Naver Real Estate (네이버 부동산) is the biggest portal aggregator, R114 is strong on apartments, 공실클럽 is a niche officetel platform — but for a foreign renter searching for a place in Seoul, Zigbang and Dabang cover most of what you'll need to see.

Both apps offer iOS, Android, and web versions. We'll cover the mobile experience, since that's where most of your time will be spent.

How to use Zigbang as a foreigner

Switch to English first. Zigbang has an English UI — partial as of early 2026, but the most complete among major Korean rental apps. Open the app → tap the gear icon (Settings) → Language → English. The interface flips: menus, filters, listing cards, and most labels become readable.

This is the good news. The not-so-good news is that the English UI translates the shell of the app — buttons and labels — but not the content posted by realtors, which is where most of the substance lives.

Filters that work in English

The filter panel is fully translated. You can confidently use:

• Sale type: 매매 (Sale) · 전세 (Jeonse) · 월세 (Monthly Rent). The dropdown shows the English labels. If you're not sure what Jeonse means, see our Jeonse vs. Wolse guide.
• Price range: Slider for deposit (보증금) and monthly rent. Korean Won, but the numerals are universal. Note that listings often display prices as 1000/60 — that means a ₩10 million deposit plus ₩600,000 monthly rent. See our Key Money explainer for why deposits in Korea are so large.
• Room type: One-room (원룸), Two-room, Three-plus-room, Studio, Officetel, Apartment, Villa.
• Area: Square meters or pyeong (평). One pyeong is about 3.3 m². A 10-pyeong officetel is roughly a 33 m² studio.
• Move-in date: Calendar picker.
• Building features: Parking, elevator, security, pet-friendly, fully furnished, recent renovation. Most are checkboxes.

What you can read on listing cards

Listing cards display:

• Price (deposit / monthly rent)
• Size (m² and pyeong)
• Floor (e.g., 5/15F means the fifth floor of a fifteen-story building)
• Type label (Officetel, Apartment, Villa, One-room, etc.)
• Thumbnail photo
• Distance from the nearest subway station

All of this is readable without Korean. You can scroll, compare, and shortlist confidently.

Where Zigbang stops translating

This is where the wall starts. When you tap into a listing detail page, here's what isn't translated:

• The realtor's free-text description. Often the most important part of the listing — renovation status, building quirks, neighborhood color, what the landlord is like, whether utilities are included. All in Korean prose.
• Building name and address. Sometimes shows in Korean only, depending on how the realtor entered the data.
• Floor plan annotations. The image is fine, but the labels on each room are in Korean (방 = bedroom, 거실 = living room, 욕실 = bathroom, 주방 = kitchen).
• Realtor profile. The agent's name, agency name, and short bio are in Korean. You can see their license number but not what they specialize in.
• The contact buttons. 전화 means "Call," 문자 means "Text," and the KakaoTalk icon routes you to the realtor's open chat. All three channels are, in practice, Korean-only on the other end.

So Zigbang in English gets you about sixty percent of the way through the apartment hunt — discovery, filtering, shortlisting. The last forty percent — reading the actual listing, calling the realtor, negotiating, signing — is Korean.

A workaround that mostly works

Use Papago or Google Translate's camera mode on the listing description. Papago in particular handles Korean real-estate jargon better than Google Translate as of early 2026. Screenshot a listing's description, run it through Papago, and you'll get a usable rendering of the agent's notes.

This works for reading. It doesn't fix the realtor-call problem, which we'll come back to.

How to use Dabang as a foreigner

Dabang's English support is less comprehensive than Zigbang's. As of early 2026, the language toggle in Dabang's settings translates filter labels and core navigation, but the listing cards and detail pages have noticeably more Korean residue than Zigbang's. If you're picking only one app to start with, start with Zigbang.

That said, Dabang has two strengths worth knowing about.

VR tours

Dabang pushed early on three-hundred-and-sixty-degree apartment tours, and a meaningful chunk of their listings — especially one-rooms in Seoul — now include a VR walkthrough. This is genuinely useful when you're shortlisting from another country: you can see the space without a flight.

VR is language-agnostic. Tap the VR icon on a listing card and you can walk through the apartment with your finger.

The 안심중개사 verified-realtor badge

Dabang flags certain agents with an "verified" (안심중개사) badge. This is not a foreigner-friendly verification. It confirms the agent has a valid license and meets Dabang's posting standards — a fraud filter, not a language or cultural-fit filter.

Useful, but don't read more into the badge than it offers.

Filters in Dabang

The filter set is similar to Zigbang's: sale type, price, area, room count, move-in date, building features. The translation is patchier — some dropdown values stay in Korean — but the structure is recognizable once you know what you're looking for.

The same wall

Dabang has the same Korean-language wall as Zigbang at the contact stage: tapping "Call" or "Message" puts you in front of a realtor who, in most cases, doesn't speak conversational English. The wall is the realtor, not the app.

The hidden barriers no app shows you

Even with perfect translation, two structural problems sit underneath both Zigbang and Dabang. These are the reasons most foreign renters who try the pure DIY route eventually look for help.

The foreigner-OK gap

Neither Zigbang nor Dabang has a "foreigner-friendly" filter, because there's no formal field for it in the underlying listing data. Whether a landlord accepts foreign tenants is decided case by case, after the realtor contacts the property owner.

In practice, this means:

1. You see a listing you like on the app.
2. You contact the realtor — or have a Korean-speaking friend do it.
3. The realtor calls the landlord and asks if a foreign tenant is okay.
4. A meaningful share of the time in central Seoul, the answer is no. Sometimes the landlord wants a higher deposit. Sometimes they want a Korean guarantor. Sometimes they just refuse, no negotiation.

You can't know any of this from the app. You only find out after committing time to the contact chain.

Realtor variance

Even among realtors who do post on Zigbang and Dabang, the experience-with-foreigners distribution is uneven. Some have handled hundreds of expat leases. Others have never written a contract for a non-Korean tenant and are nervous about the ARC paperwork, the bank-transfer choreography, and visa-status questions.

The realtor lottery is the single biggest source of "Korean apartment-hunting was a nightmare" stories from foreign renters. The apps don't show you which realtor is which.

Contract and deposit risk

Once you do find a listing, the rental contract (임대차계약서) is in Korean. Deposits are large — often ₩10 million or more for a wolse — and are wired directly to the landlord's bank account with no escrow. Dispute resolution runs through the local district office or, in rare cases, the Housing Lease Dispute Adjustment Commission. Both operate in Korean.

Translation apps help you read the contract. They don't tell you which clauses are standard, which are negotiable, and which are landlord-favoring boilerplate you should push back on. See our Foreigner's Korean Lease Checklist for what to actually look for before you sign anything.

What to do when you hit the wall

There are three honest paths once you've used Zigbang or Dabang to build a shortlist and bumped into the language wall.

Path 1: Find a bilingual realtor on your own

Search LinkedIn, expat Facebook groups, the Seoul Foreigners' Network, and your company's relocation contacts. A bilingual Korean realtor is the single most valuable asset in your search. Once you have one, send them your Zigbang shortlist and let them handle the calling, screening, and negotiating.

Cost: standard Korean broker commission, capped by law. Quality depends entirely on the individual realtor you find.

Path 2: Use a foreigner-focused service

A small handful of services in Korea specialize in pre-screened, foreigner-friendly rentals — meaning the landlord has already said yes to foreign tenants before the listing is published, and the realtor on the other end speaks fluent English.

HavenLens is one of these. We work with a curated network of partner realtors in Gangnam and surrounding districts; every listing on our site is confirmed expat-friendly before it appears, and we handle lease translation and walk-through tours in English. Inventory is small by design — about a dozen verified listings at any time — which is the trade-off for the verification work that goes into each one.

There are alternatives in this category as well: Ziptoss, U Homes, and Korea Real Estate each operate on similar foreigner-focused models, with different geographies and price tiers. The right one for you depends on neighborhood, budget, and how much hand-holding you want.

Path 3: Push through with translation tools and a Korean friend

The DIY path is viable if you have a patient, bilingual Korean friend who can be on the phone with you during realtor calls and read the contract before you sign. Many foreign renters have made this work, especially those staying in Korea for a year or less, where the cost of a verified service feels disproportionate.

Risks: translation slips on legal terms, landlord bias on the deposit terms, and emotional fatigue from foreigner-rejection rejections. Pick this path if you have the time and the Korean network. Skip it if you don't.

Quick comparison

This isn't a "use one or the other" decision. Most foreign renters who land successfully in Seoul use Zigbang or Dabang to develop a sense of the market — what neighborhoods cost, what one-rooms versus officetels feel like — and then layer a verified service or a bilingual realtor on top when it's time to actually move.

TL;DR

1. Switch Zigbang to English first. It's the most translated Korean rental app.
2. Use Zigbang and Dabang for discovery and shortlisting — they're excellent for this. Get a feel for the market.
3. Stop short of relying on them for contact, contract, or deposit — those steps are Korean-only in practice.
4. When you hit the wall, pick one of three paths: bilingual realtor, foreigner-focused service, or DIY with a Korean friend.
5. Don't sign anything you haven't fully read. Translation apps are good enough for a listing description. They are not good enough for a lease.

Common questions

Is Zigbang available in English? Yes, partially. The interface translates to English in Settings → Language → English. Filters, listing cards, and most navigation labels become readable. Realtor descriptions, building names, and contact channels remain in Korean.

Can foreigners use Zigbang to rent in Korea? Yes, with caveats. You can browse, filter, and shortlist listings without Korean. The friction starts when you contact the realtor, who in most cases doesn't speak English, and continues through the lease, which is in Korean.

Which is better for foreigners — Zigbang or Dabang? Zigbang. Its English UI is more complete, its listing volume is larger, and its filter set is more usable in English. Dabang is worth a second tab if you want VR-tour listings or one-room–focused inventory.

Do you need Korean to use Zigbang? For discovery and filtering, no. For reading listing descriptions, contacting realtors, and signing a lease, yes — or a translation app plus a Korean-speaking friend, or a foreigner-focused service that handles those steps for you.

Are Zigbang listings safe? Zigbang doesn't escrow deposits or guarantee listings. Most listings are legitimate, but scams exist — usually involving fake landlords or non-existent properties. Insisting on an in-person tour and verifying the property registry (등기부등본) before transferring any deposit removes most of the risk.

Where to go next

• If 보증금 1000 still doesn't quite click: read Key Money (보증금) Explained.
• If you're choosing between Gangnam, Itaewon, and Yongsan for where to live: see Where Expats Actually Live in Seoul.
• If you have a contract in front of you right now: stop here and read The Foreigner's Korean Lease Checklist before signing.

When you're ready to look at pre-screened listings, the HavenLens search page shows our current verified inventory. Every listing on the site has a confirmed foreigner-OK landlord, a Korean realtor who speaks English, and a transparent deposit structure on the card.

Good hunting.