Sejong Apartments Rank 1 Nationwide with 70.25%... Objections Surge 15 Times

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo Gang-wook] This year, Sejong City recorded the highest nationwide increase in the publicly announced prices of multi-family housing, which serve as the tax base for property tax and comprehensive real estate tax, with a rise of over 70%. The number of objections filed in Sejong City surged 15 times compared to last year.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 28th that it will finalize and publicly announce the official prices of 14.2 million multi-family housing units, including apartments, row houses, and multi-unit dwellings, as of the 29th, after collecting and reviewing opinions from owners and others on the draft prices for 2021.

According to this announcement, the nationwide official prices of multi-family housing increased by 19.05% compared to the previous year. Although this is 0.03 percentage points lower than the draft prices released last month, it represents the largest increase since 2007 (22.7%). The rate of change in official prices has been rising annually: 4.44% in 2017, 5.02% in 2018, 5.23% in 2019, and 5.98% last year. In Seoul, the rate was adjusted downward by 0.02 percentage points from 19.91% to 19.89%.

By region, Sejong had the highest increase rate at 70.25%, followed by Gyeonggi at 23.94%, Daejeon at 20.58%, Seoul at 19.89%, and Busan at 19.56%. Although Sejong’s rate was lowered by 0.43 percentage points from the draft, it still showed about three times the increase compared to other regions.

As official prices surged, the number of objections also increased significantly. According to the Ministry of Land, a total of 49,601 opinions were received, an increase of 12,191 (32.6%) compared to last year’s 37,410. This is the highest number since 2007, when 56,355 were received. Among the submitted opinions, 48,591 (98%) requested a reduction in the official prices.

In particular, the number of opinions submitted in Sejong City rose sharply to 4,095 this year, nearly 15 times the 275 submitted last year. Ulsan saw a dramatic increase as well, with 337 opinions this year compared to just 6 last year, a 55-fold surge.

Seoul had the highest number of objections among all cities and provinces with 22,502, although this was a decrease from last year’s 26,029. Additionally, in Daejeon (1,032 → 360) and Jeju (115 → 46), where official prices rose by more than 20% compared to last year, the number of objections was lower than the previous year.

Only 2,485 of the opinions were reflected in the official prices, representing an acceptance rate of just 5.0% of all submissions. Although this is higher than last year’s adjustment rate of 2.4%, it is much lower than the 21.5% acceptance rate in 2019, indicating that most requests were not accepted.

If the officially determined prices are fully applied, a sharp rise in holding taxes such as property tax (levied in July and September) and comprehensive real estate tax (levied in November) is inevitable. The Ministry of Land also predicted in its March announcement of the draft official prices for multi-family housing that holding taxes could increase by more than 30% based on a simulated analysis.

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