Empty House 'Information System' Claims... Only 159 Households Registered Nationwide

Jo O-seop, Member of the Democratic Party of Korea (Provided by Jo O-seop's Office)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] Korea Land and Geospatial Informatix Corporation (LX) has been criticized for the ineffective operation of the vacant house information system 'Gonggarang,' which was established to revitalize vacant house transactions. While LX estimates there are 685,000 vacant houses nationwide, only 159 houses are registered in the system.

According to data submitted by LX to Cho Oh-seop, a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, a total of 159 vacant houses are registered in Gonggarang nationwide. Of these, 157 are in Jeonbuk and 2 in Chungbuk.

Gonggarang is a project that has received a total investment of over 1.2 billion KRW since 2018. LX identifies vacant houses by analyzing electricity and water usage through the vacant house information system, after which local governments conduct field surveys to register the vacant houses.

LX estimates there are about 685,000 vacant houses nationwide. Among these, 23,602 houses have been confirmed as vacant through field surveys conducted by 11 metropolitan cities/provinces and 32 local governments. However, only 0.7% of these, 159 houses, are registered in Gonggarang. Registration requires the owner's consent to disclose personal information, but due to insufficient consent, many remain unregistered.

Rep. Cho said, "In large cities, vacant house owners are waiting for reconstruction or have entangled interests, so they are not selling immediately," adding, "There is no reason for vacant house owners to provide their personal information to Gonggarang."

LX explained that the vacant house transaction information support system service, developed as part of the second phase of Gonggarang, was launched in July, which accounts for the low number of registered vacant houses.

However, Rep. Cho stated, "The issue of obtaining owners' consent to disclose personal information was anticipated from the planning stage of the system four years ago." In fact, LX has been discussing personal information issues annually since the basic project plan in January 2017. Furthermore, although owners can directly register their vacant houses in Gonggarang, no houses have been directly registered since its launch.

Rep. Cho pointed out, "The problem is not the timing of the system's launch but the unresolved issue of owners' consent to disclose information," and criticized, "LX pushed the project forward recklessly without measures for personal information consent." He further suggested, "LX should establish more fundamental measures to increase the effectiveness of Gonggarang, which costs 200 million KRW annually, by securing personal information consent and revitalizing vacant house transactions."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.