Hong Nam-ki: "Housing Prices Accelerate Downward Stabilization... Excessive Increases Need Downward Adjustment"

The 38th Real Estate Market Inspection Meeting of Related Ministers

Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, is speaking while presiding over the 38th Real Estate Market Inspection Ministerial Meeting held at the Government Seoul Office Building on the 3rd. 2022.2.3
[Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Son Seonhee] Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, stated on the 3rd, "The (real estate) market's downward stabilization trend is expected to accelerate," adding, "I believe a certain degree of downward adjustment is necessary for the parts where housing prices have excessively risen."

Deputy Prime Minister Hong chaired a meeting of related ministers to review the real estate market at the Government Seoul Office that morning and evaluated the recent real estate market trends as such. He said, "In the fourth week of January, apartment prices in the metropolitan area stopped rising for the first time in 2 years and 5 months since August 2019, and Seoul apartment prices turned negative (-0.01%) for the first time in 1 year and 8 months since May 2020."

In particular, he noted, "In actual transactions, 4 out of 5 apartments nationwide in December last year were sold at prices lower than the previous reported prices," adding, "Since January, cases of transactions dropping by more than 100 million KRW have been continuously detected in many areas such as Gangnam, Seocho, Seongdong, and Ilsan, further expanding the sense of decline." Regarding the jeonse market, he also added, "Last week, the metropolitan area turned to a decline, and Seoul ended its upward trend."

Regarding the 2·4 measures, which have reached their first anniversary, Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, "One year after the announcement of the measures, unprecedented achievements have been made in terms of execution speed, such as selecting 500,000 housing sites, about 60% of the target volume, as candidate sites," and evaluated, "Immediately after the announcement, the volume effect eased short-term market instability, and in the second half of the year, the full-scale designation of candidate sites and districts contributed centrally to the recent market downward stabilization trend."

He added, "This year, we will additionally select candidate sites for 50,000 urban complex houses, 50,000 public maintenance houses, and 23,000 small-scale maintenance houses, and we will make every effort to complete district designation within the year for all previously announced candidate sites."

Meanwhile, the government recently detected cases of concentrated purchases of low-priced apartments with official prices under 100 million KRW by some corporations and non-residents and conducted investigations. Regarding this, Deputy Prime Minister Hong warned, "As a result of investigating 1,808 suspicious transactions by corporations and non-residents who purchased low-priced apartments three or more times since July 2020, illegal gift transfers, name trusts, and corporate tax evasion were confirmed," adding, "We will strictly take action against all illegal and unfair acts and will continue year-round regular investigations and inspections in the future."

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