Early Voting Day 2... Oh Se-hoon vs Song Young-gil Real Estate Pledges

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyemin] As the second day of early voting for the June 1 local elections begins, attention is also focused on the real estate pledges of the Seoul mayoral candidates.

With the official election underway, Oh Se-hoon of the People Power Party and Song Young-gil of the Democratic Party are fiercely debating the feasibility of each other's real estate pledges.

What draws attention in this round of real estate pledges is the shift in policy direction as the ruling and opposition parties have swapped roles. Candidate Oh emphasizes improving the quality of rental housing, while Candidate Song advocates for expanding supply and easing regulations.

Candidate Oh presents improving housing quality to assist vulnerable groups, youth, and child-rearing families as his main real estate pledge. He stated, "I will completely break the stereotype that rental housing is of relatively poor quality," making rental housing quality improvement his top real estate pledge. Additionally, he pledged to expand the size of youth housing and introduce the ‘Three Major Residential Filial Piety Houses’ that provide incentives for close-distance living between parents and children.

Regarding redevelopment and reconstruction projects, he plans to add support for rapid integrated planning and Moa Housing, aiming to smoothly advance existing projects. Currently, 53 redevelopment and reconstruction projects are underway in Seoul. However, he appears cautious about designating new project sites. On a radio show, Candidate Oh said, "The 53 redevelopment and reconstruction districts already underway will not be affected at all," but also added, "For places where additional acceleration is needed, it would be better to approach carefully while observing housing price trends in the second half of this year."

Conversely, Candidate Song shows a clear rightward shift in real estate policy. He proposed raising the comprehensive real estate tax threshold for multi-homeowners to 1.1 billion won, easing tax burdens not only for single-homeowners but also for multi-homeowners. His pledges include increasing reconstruction floor area ratios up to 500%, abolishing safety inspections for houses over 30 years old, raising the loan-to-value ratio (LTV) to 90% for first-time homebuyers, and deferring capital gains tax surcharges for two years?many of which are bolder than the deregulation measures of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration.

This stance is in direct contrast to the real estate policies pursued during the Moon Jae-in administration. Candidate Song stated, "I will boldly break away from the idea of using taxes as a punitive tool to control housing prices and will reduce excessive tax burdens while respecting the market."

Candidate Kwon Soo-jung of the Justice Party pledged to fundamentally regulate demand concentrated only in Seoul by imposing congestion taxes on companies based in Seoul. She also set policy goals to stabilize housing for the majority of Seoul citizens who are tenants through mandatory supply of rental housing in reconstruction projects, expansion of social housing, and shared equity housing.

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