President Lee to opposition: "How about stopping your defense of ruinous real estate speculation?"

Yonhap News Agency [The Financial News] President Lee Jae-myung has been using social media day after day to signal his strong determination to stabilize the real estate market. On the 2nd, President Lee shared a news article on social media and wrote, "How about stopping your defense of ruinous real estate speculation and your anachronistic red-baiting over North Korea?" The article he shared reported criticism from the People Power Party (PPP), which had attacked President Lee for his posts on real estate policy, saying, "It is highly inappropriate for a president to shake public opinion with provocative slogans.
" Lee’s comment was a direct rebuttal to that criticism. Earlier the same day, President Lee had also shared an article reporting that asking prices for properties in Gaepo-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul had plunged.
President Lee has been repeatedly using social media to stress his resolve to stabilize the real estate market. On the 31st of last month, President Lee also posted on social media, "Do you really think normalizing what is abnormal and curbing real estate speculation are bound to fail?" again signaling a strong will to stabilize the housing market.
He wrote that "normalizing illegal valley developments meant completing the clean-up of the valleys, and normalizing a stock market rife with illegal manipulation meant the opening of the 5,000-point KOSPI era," adding, "All it takes is trusting the people, without calculating votes, and being willing to endure criticism. " He went on, "Normalizing the real estate market is far easier and far more important than reaching 5,000 on the KOSPI or cleaning up the valleys.
" In another post, he declared, "We will stabilize housing prices, no matter what it takes," and urged, "Don’t take losses like those who bought 'Gobverse'—a slang term for leveraged inverse ETFs betting on a market decline. If you own multiple homes, use this last chance to sell by May 9, when the exemption from heavy capital gains tax on multiple-home owners expires, and enjoy the tax benefits.
" He added, "There are plenty of tools available, both legally and politically, to stabilize housing prices, but in reality we have not used the most powerful and optimal measures so far because of political calculations over gains and losses. " He continued, "If we trust the people and free ourselves from those political calculations, this is by no means an impossible task.
" Given that President Lee has already stressed that the temporary suspension of heavy capital gains taxes on multiple-home owners will end as scheduled, observers say he is signaling a willingness to deploy even politically sensitive tax measures to normalize the real estate market. In particular, analysts note that the stock market, long criticized as an unlevel playing field and stuck in the doldrums, has, under the Lee Jae-myung administration, found a "success formula" for reaching 5,000 on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) thanks to a series of commercial law reforms.
They predict that, in a similar way, the administration will be ready to take aggressive action when necessary to stabilize the real estate market.
On the 25th of last month, President Lee wrote on social media, "When we pushed for commercial law reforms for normalization, people raised a huge fuss and resisted as if companies and the country were going to collapse.
But once the reforms were actually passed, didn’t things improve for both businesses and our national community?" He stressed, "There will be plenty of pain and resistance as we try to escape this republic of unearned real estate income that is hurtling toward a lost 30 years, but if something is necessary and useful, we must not shy away from it.
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cjk@fnnews.com Choi Jong-geun Reporter