President Lee Jae-myung posted four consecutive messages on social media within an hour on the 5th laying out his determination to normalize the property market, declaring that "home prices will surely stabilize." He reaffirmed his plan to expand housing supply, saying he had ordered the new land minister and the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) to pursue early mass supply "as if they were obsessed with building homes," with the nation's fate at stake.
On X, formerly Twitter, Lee shared a post by a construction worker saying that construction sites had visibly declined and that many construction workers had lost their jobs after former President Yoon Suk-yeol took office. Lee wrote that housing construction permits had risen about 50% from a year earlier in recent months. Building homes in Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area is an urgent, important and highly effective policy, he said, because it delivers two effects at once — the early supply of homes that are in short supply, and a lift to domestic demand through the construction sector, which he described as what the economy needs most right now.
Against that backdrop, Lee stressed that the government was working across ministries under the prime minister's oversight to accelerate housing permits and land supply, checking progress daily, with results reported to the president on a weekly basis. He added that because many developers were hesitating to break ground even after receiving permits, out of concern that units would go unsold, he had instructed LH to commit to buying unsold units for use as rental housing.
"It will take some time, but home prices will surely stabilize through normalizing taxes, adjusting lending, expanding supply and relocating administrative agencies, state-owned enterprises and companies to regions outside the capital," Lee said.
In an earlier post, Lee said that however difficult the present moment was, South Korea could not be allowed to face three lost decades at the end of a game of passing along a property bubble. He pointed to the rapid increase in apartment listings, centered on Seoul's three southern districts of Gangnam, Seocho and Songpa, while outlining a mix of short- and long-term property measures spanning supply expansion, an overhaul of lending and tax rules, and efforts to ease the concentration of population and business in the capital region.
In another post, responding to criticism that his property policy was in disarray, Lee asked the public to be patient a little longer despite their disappointment and to judge by the results. He also highlighted three mega-projects and seven seed policies aimed at strengthening living conditions in regions outside the capital.
