Korean-Speaking Realtor in Boston, Massachusetts

Diana Yeji Kim is a Korean-speaking REALTOR® with eXp Realty, serving buyers, sellers, and renters across Greater Boston. If English is your second language, a home purchase is exactly the kind of moment where a small misunderstanding gets expensive — so the whole process can run in Korean: the paperwork, the numbers, and the negotiation.

What changes when the transaction runs in Korean

It isn't translation for its own sake. The purchase & sale agreement, the loan estimate, and the closing disclosure are dense documents even for native English speakers, and they carry real deadlines — days where a missed signature or a misread contingency costs you money or the house. Working in Korean means the contract terms are explained in plain language, the mortgage steps are laid out before you sign anything, and the back-and-forth with the listing side is handled directly, without relaying every point through a third party who doesn't know your priorities.

Just as important is what happens between the milestones. Which inspection findings are worth reopening a negotiation over and which are normal for a 1920s two-family; whether a low appraisal is a problem or a bluff; how much room a seller actually has. Those judgment calls are where a lot of value sits, and they're much harder to make when you're also translating the conversation in your head. Handling them in Korean lets you decide with full information instead of a rough gist.

Renting or buying without US credit history

Many Korean clients arrive with little or no US credit — students, families here on a work assignment, and recent immigrants. It's a common situation, not a dead end. For rentals, some landlords accept additional documentation, a larger deposit, or a few months' rent up front in place of a long credit record; a straightforward explanation of your situation, prepared in advance, often does more than the score itself. For a purchase, certain lenders work with ITIN borrowers or newcomer profiles, and there are first-time-buyer programs in Massachusetts worth checking before you assume you don't qualify.

The right route depends on your timeline, your visa or residency status, and the paperwork you can produce, which is exactly why it's worth talking through early rather than after you've fallen for a place. Two starting points I've written for this: buying without US credit anda mortgage on a visa, and ITIN loans.

How the US process differs from Korea

Buyers coming from Korea are often surprised by the sequence and the vocabulary. You start with pre-approval so your budget is real before you tour — an offer without it rarely gets taken seriously. Once an offer is accepted, the deal moves through a home inspection, a formal purchase & sale agreement, an appraisal, and an escrow and closing process that can run several weeks, each stage on its own clock. Escrow, contingencies, and the P&S are concepts that don't map cleanly onto a Korean transaction, so I walk through each one before it comes up rather than in the middle of it.

One recent change matters for every buyer. Since the 2024 industry settlement, buyers sign a written buyer-agency agreement before touring homes — it states how your agent is paid, and that amount is negotiable. A seller may still offer to cover some or all of it, but it is no longer assumed; where it isn't covered, the fee can be worked into your offer. The practical effect is that the cost is transparent and agreed up front, before you're attached to a house. None of it is difficult once someone maps it out for you in advance — that mapping, in your language, is most of what I do.

Where I work

Most of my Korean clients are looking in Brookline, Newton, Cambridge, Quincy, and Lexington — for the schools, the commute into the city, and established Korean communities and grocers — but I cover Boston and Greater Boston broadly, including Needham, Waltham, and Watertown. If you're weighing two towns against each other, that's a conversation I have often; the honest answer usually depends on your commute and your budget more than on any ranking.

About Diana

Diana Yeji Kim, REALTOR® · eXp Realty · MA License #9571004. Sixteen years in Greater Boston as a renter, a first-time buyer, and an investor — the same path many of my clients are on now. Prefer to read in Korean? Here's the Korean version of this site.