Minister Noh Hyung-wook: "Announcement of '130,000+ Alpha' New Housing Site Land at the End of This Month"

Delayed New Housing Sites to Be Announced Possibly by the End of This Month
Volume Increased by Several Thousand Units from Existing 130,000 Units
No 'Blockbuster'-Level Surprise Measures Expected

Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Noh Hyung-wook Photo by Yonhap News

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is set to announce new housing site candidates totaling '130,000 units + alpha' as early as the end of this month. The government initially planned to announce around 130,000 units, but several thousand additional units are expected to be added. However, they also expressed the intention to focus on steadily implementing existing measures rather than pursuing 'blockbuster-level' housing supply plans going forward.

On the 19th, two days before his 100th day in office, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Noh Hyung-wook met with reporters covering the ministry to explain the direction for expanding housing supply.

First, Minister Noh announced that the locations for the new housing sites totaling '130,000 units + alpha' will be announced at the end of this month or early September. The government had previously announced plans to designate new housing sites totaling 250,000 units through the 2·4 measures. Accordingly, locations for 119,000 units in areas such as Gwangmyeong and Siheung were disclosed, but the announcement of the remaining 131,000 units was delayed after a land speculation scandal involving employees of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) broke out in March.

Minister Noh said, "The investigation is being conducted to preemptively address speculation concerns, but since land acquisition is complete and nearly finalized, we should be able to announce it in about two weeks." It is also known that several thousand units will be added to the existing 131,000 units.

Regarding current housing prices, Minister Noh reiterated that they are "overvalued." He said, "The general analysis is that prices have risen significantly above the long-term trend overall. When the mountain is high, the valley is deep, and if the valley deepens, serious problems arise, so we need to reduce that range."

However, he explained that there will be no further 'blockbuster-level' large-scale additional supply plans. Minister Noh stated, "Consistency in supply measures is important, and saying that we need to 'boom' a blockbuster-level plan in this situation could be irresponsible." Since the effects of large-scale supply plans can only be seen at least 10 years later, the intention is to focus on steadily implementing the previously announced measures.

View of apartment complexes in Songpa-gu and Gangnam-gu, Seoul, from the Seoul Sky observatory at Lotte World Tower in Songpa-gu, Seoul [Image source=Yonhap News]

Regarding Seoul City's recent decision to abolish the 15-floor and 35-floor regulations for apartments along the Han River, he reiterated the existing stance that "to supply housing within Seoul, the only way is to increase building heights through redevelopment or reconstruction," and added, "Side effects such as raising surrounding housing prices, concentrating development profits in a few, and displacing existing residents must be minimized."

He also mentioned the recent pre-subscription for the metropolitan area. Minister Noh said, "We expect to announce plans to expand pre-subscription for private housing by next week," adding, "Private housing tends to have larger units such as 84㎡ compared to public supply, so a lot can be supplied through pre-subscription." Regarding the subscription system being disadvantageous to young people and the resulting frustration among those in their 20s and 30s, he responded, "We are aware of the problem."

On the argument from some quarters that capital gains tax should be eased even slightly to encourage multi-homeowners to put their properties on the market, he said, "We are fully aware of the concern that this causes a shortage of listings," but explained, "There are claims that easing capital gains tax is ineffective, and there is much controversy from the perspective of tax justice."

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