President Moon Jae-in, New Year’s press conference on the 18th
Pay attention to what will be said about real estate
Last year, strong remarks such as’recovering home prices’
This year seems to focus on expanding housing supply.
President Moon Jae-in is giving a New Year’s address at the Blue House on the 11th. (Photo = Yonhap News)
[아시아경제 문제원 기자] President Moon Jae-in will hold a New Year’s press conference on the 18th to reveal the direction of state administration for the fifth year in office. At this meeting, directions and opinions on additional real estate measures are expected to be mentioned. As the government is sending out signals of’expansion of housing supply’ every day, some analyzes suggest that more specific measures can be discussed.
According to politics on the 16th, President Moon will hold a New Year’s press conference for about 100 minutes at the Cheongwadae Chunchu Hall from 10 am on the 18th. It plans to freely receive and answer questions in the fields of economy, quarantine, society, politics, diplomatic and security, etc. from 20 reporters participating in the field and 100 reporters connected through video connection.
The industry is interested in what President Moon will say about the real estate issue this year. At the New Year’s press conference held on January 14 last year, President Moon made strong remarks such as “restoring home prices” to tense the real estate market. At the time, he expressed his willingness to stabilize house prices several times, saying, “We will endlessly come up with stronger (real estate) measures,” or “We will definitely hold real estate within the period of our government.”
In particular, President Moon said, “In some areas, as it is really difficult for the common people to understand, there has been a sharp rise in prices that feels uncomfortable,” he said. This is the first time that President Moon has presented specific goals for market stability. For this reason, an analysis was raised that the current government would come up with super-strong additional measures targeting the Gangnam area, which has led the increase in housing prices in Seoul.
In fact, like President Moon’s rant, the government announced strong real estate measures several times last year. However, even these measures did not catch the house price. According to the results of the National Housing Price Trend Survey published by the Korea Real Estate Agency, the rate of increase in national house prices including apartments and single-family homes last year was 5.36%, the highest in nine years since 2011. In a short period of time, the polarization of assets has intensified as the prices of houses have soared, and new words such as’thunderbolt’,’real estate blue (real estate depression)’, and’Isaeng’s housekeeping (in this life’s house buying is ruined)’ were created.
At this year’s New Year’s press conference, President Moon is expected to focus more on expanding housing supply unlike last year. This is because public opinion deteriorated as a result of continued regulatory changes last year, and house price instability was severe due to various side effects. In fact, President Moon said in his New Year’s address on the 11th, “We will put special emphasis on supply expansion and quickly come up with a variety of housing supply plans that can take effect quickly.” It is in the same context as the first state council meeting on the 5th of the new year, saying, “We will focus on quickly preparing innovative and diverse housing supply plans.”
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Strategy and Finance are also preparing measures focused on expanding the supply of new housing. On the 15th, Deputy Prime Minister of Economy and Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Hong Nam-ki, emphasized that “in 2021, we plan to do our best to secure the quantity of available housing while maintaining the policy stance of blocking speculative demand and protecting end-users in 2021.”
Accordingly, it is observed that the government’s measures to expand housing supply in downtown Seoul before the Lunar New Year holiday will include a larger quantity of goods than expected. It is possible that President Moon will comment on more specifics related to this at the New Year’s press conference. Currently, the government is discussing plans for public-led development of semi-industrial areas and low-rise residential areas, high-density development of subway station areas, revitalization of small-scale housing maintenance projects, and supply of public self-owned houses such as land rental.
Reporter Jeon Jung-won [email protected]