President Lee Jae Myung convened his second government-wide housing policy meeting in four days Friday, pressing officials to dramatically expand housing supply and bring new homes to market faster following this week’s property tax overhaul.
The closed-door session, held at Cheong Wa Dae from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., centered on three questions: where to build new housing, how many homes to supply and how quickly they can be brought to market.
Lee received briefings from relevant ministers and committee chairs on financial support measures to accelerate housing supply, senior presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said.
Participants also discussed ways to encourage and support the earlier delivery of homes, exchanging a wide range of views on the proposals.
“Over the course of the six-hour meeting, a broad range of proposals for significantly expanding housing supply and swiftly implementing those measures were put forward and closely reviewed,” Kang said in a statement issued afterward.
Concluding the meeting, Lee again urged Prime Minister Han Seong-sook and relevant ministers “not to remain wedded to conventional thinking, but to take a fundamentally different approach and think and act boldly.”
Friday’s session followed a 7 1/2-hour review of housing and financial markets that Lee held Monday, immediately after returning from an 11-day tour of the Americas.
Kang said Friday that Lee had instructed officials at the first meeting to devise measures to maximize housing supply and bring new homes to market as quickly as possible. The second meeting focused on follow-up measures to carry out that directive.
During Monday’s meeting, Lee warned that a prolonged construction slowdown since 2022 had left the housing market facing a “supply cliff,” emphasizing that speed was as critical as volume in addressing the shortage.
Lee’s emphasis on speed reflects concern that even an ambitious supply package would do little to stabilize prices unless the yearslong timeline between the announcement of housing projects and the start of construction was sharply compressed.
Friday’s closed-door discussions are believed to have included ways to apply that approach to the Jan. 29 metropolitan housing plan, which calls for construction to begin in 2027 on projects totaling roughly 60,000 homes.
Proposed development sites include the former Camp Kim compound in Yongsan, the Taereung golf course, the former Defense Counterintelligence Command compound and land near the Gwacheon racetrack, where progress has remained slow.
The prospect that those projects could be fast-tracked has drawn attention, although Cheong Wa Dae has remained cautious about disclosing the specific measures under consideration.
“It is difficult at this point to discuss the specific supply measures or when they will be announced,” Kang said Thursday, before the meeting. “But we may be able to provide further answers after the second meeting.”
Yet Friday’s statement did not identify specific projects, supply targets or a timetable for announcing the government’s plans.
Housing emerges as political flashpoint
The back-to-back meetings reflect the urgency behind Lee’s drive to “normalize” the housing market through coordinated tax, supply and financing measures.
The Lee administration says the strategy aims to curb speculative gains, protect housing rights and reinforce the principle that homes should be places to live rather than vehicles for speculation.
Monday’s tax overhaul would protect owner-occupiers while increasing the burden on ultrahigh-priced homes, properties their owners don’t occupy, and multiple-home owners. It would shift the system’s emphasis from the number of homes owned to their value and whether the owner lives in them.
Housing supply is the administration’s next major policy push.
But how quickly the government can deliver new homes has become the latest political battleground between the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and the main opposition People Power Party.
The People Power Party held a plenary meeting of its “special committee on the normalization of real estate policy” on Friday, stepping up its offensive against the tax overhaul ahead of parliamentary deliberations.
PPP leader Rep. Jang Dong-hyeok, who chairs the committee, accused the Lee administration of fueling the housing crisis and then penalizing homeowners in the name of fixing it.
“What people need now is not more regulation and higher taxes,” Jang said. “Real estate normalization means easing regulations, loosening lending restrictions and reviving stalled redevelopment and reconstruction projects.”
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, a prominent PPP figure, added to the pressure Thursday by hosting a public forum on the government’s tax plan.
“Could this end up doing nothing to curb home prices while only pushing up jeonse and monthly rents?” Oh asked.
Jeonse is a system by which tenants pay a large upfront deposit instead of monthly rent, usually recovering the full amount at the end of the lease.
Oh called for a greater emphasis on private sector redevelopment and reconstruction to expand supply in Seoul.
The Democratic Party countered that the supply shortage led to a sharp fall in housing starts and delays in third-generation new towns under the former Yoon Suk Yeol administration.
The ruling party further pointed out that the opposition had obstructed legislation intended to support new housing construction.
“The People Power Party should stop merely shouting about supply and cooperate in passing the housing supply bills being pursued by the government and the Democratic Party,” acting party leader and floor leader Rep. Han Byung-do said Friday.
“If the People Power Party is sincere about housing supply, it should cooperate in convening a plenary session on Aug. 13 and passing the relevant bills,” Han said.
dagyumji@heraldcorp.com
