Nothing wrong about ordinary Korean wanting to own property

 

 
Lee Sang-ryeol
 
The author is a senior editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo. 
 
 
 
The backlash against progressive governments’ housing policies in Korea stems not only from soaring home prices, but also from hypocrisy among key officials. During the Moon Jae-in administration, then — Blue House policy chief Jang Ha-sung remarked, “Not everyone needs to live in Gangnam.” Under the Lee Jae Myung government, Vice Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Lee Sang-kyeong, a key real estate adviser, said, “You can buy when prices stabilize,” before resigning. Both comments, from men who profited from the very markets they tried to tame, recalled the words of Jo Kuk, leader of the Rebuilding Korea Party, who once said, “What matters is not that everyone becomes a dragon soaring above the clouds, but that even those living as minnows, frogs and crawfish in the stream can still be happy.”
 

Apartment complexes in Seoul’s Gangnam District are seen from Namsan in July. [NEWS1]

 
The Moon administration’s housing failure had many causes — punitive taxes, excessive regulations, insufficient supply and abundant liquidity — but its deeper problem was ideological. Its policies ignored market principles and dismissed people’s basic instincts.
 
Everyone wants to live in a neighborhood with reliable infrastructure, like markets, hospitals, schools and public transport. Families need larger homes as children grow. Yet the government neglected to develop or supply such housing. It vilified multiple-home owners as speculators and stifled rental businesses.
 
In doing so, it crushed legitimate aspirations for better housing. Mortgages were restricted, and taxes — property, acquisition and capital gains — were all sharply increased. Buying, selling and even holding a home became arduous.
 
The government’s designation of “regulated areas” had the perverse effect of signaling which districts were likely to rise in price. Land transaction permit zones effectively became state-certified premium areas. People lined up to move in, even if it meant applying for local government approval. Meanwhile, heavy taxes were passed down to tenants through higher rents.
 

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The Lee Jae Myung administration, in its first four months, has already rolled out three real estate measures, seemingly poised to surpass Moon’s two dozen policy packages over five years. The current trajectory is a fast train toward mutual misfortune — for both the government and the public. Officials argue that temporary overheating required strong demand-suppression measures, but that assumption was flawed from the start.
 
Government missteps fueled panic buying and deepened market anxiety. Apartment supply in Seoul and the capital region is expected to drop sharply in the coming years. The so-called “Sept. 7 supply plan” lacked substance, and the fear of rising prices pushed buyers back into the market. Reports that the government was expanding regulatory zones and tightening lending rules further heightened anxiety. Many began to believe only cash-rich buyers would ever be able to purchase homes in greater Seoul. As households rushed to buy before new restrictions took effect, housing prices in metropolitan areas surged again.
 
During the presidential campaign, Lee Jae Myung pledged to pursue “a stable housing policy that respects the market, avoiding the strange phenomenon in which home prices soar the more the government tries to suppress them.” That promise drew some support from conservative voters who sought predictability. Yet the administration’s Oct. 15 policy package went in the opposite direction.
 

A television in a real estate agency in Seoul airs a news report on the government’s new housing market stabilization measures on Oct. 15. All 25 districts of Seoul and 12 areas in Gyeonggi Province were recently designated as regulated zones, including adjustment and speculation-prone areas. [YONHAP]

 
Like its predecessors, the current government risks alienating the public by failing to respect a simple human impulse: the desire to buy a home in a good neighborhood. Measures such as the land transaction permit system, which restricts home purchases in designated zones, should not become the norm. When freedom of residence is curtailed and only the wealthy can afford homes, inequality widens further.
 
Apartments cannot be mass-produced overnight, but the government can still provide confidence that supply will steadily expand. Relaxing restrictions on greenbelt land and easing reconstruction profit taxes are realistic steps if there is political will. Housing policy must mobilize the full capacity of the state, but within the framework of a functioning market.
 
Real estate operates, ultimately, on supply and demand. Policies that suppress only demand while neglecting supply have failed time and again. What Korea needs now is a housing strategy grounded in economic fundamentals — one that trusts the market, respects citizens’ aspirations and restores balance to a society divided between property haves and have-nots.


This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.