Real Estate Debate Held in Response to Lee's Event... "Supply Regulations Should Be Eased"

[Financial News] After President Lee Jae-myung held a "National Forum on Real Estate Policy" on the 23rd and stressed the need to raise taxes on real estate holdings, the People Power Party countered with its own "Forum on Normalizing Real Estate Policy." Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk criticized the president's forum as "a meaningless talk fest" and argued that supply should be expanded around the private sector.
On the 24th, the People Power Party held a forum on normalizing real estate policy at the National Assembly and strongly criticized the president's policy stance. Targeting the forum hosted by Lee, Jang said it was "a meaningless talk fest, surrounded by supporters cheering on the administration's real estate policy, where he only said what he wanted to say." He added, "If the administration has no intention of changing its (real estate) policy, then the administration itself must be changed."
Jang said Lee had signaled higher holding taxes, the abolition of the long-term holding special deduction, and tighter lending rules, while effectively admitting there were no supply measures. He argued that this meant "going in the exact opposite direction of the public will and market demand." He added, "People are even saying that Moon Jae-in was better." He called for more housing supply, revitalized redevelopment and reconstruction, and a financial environment that would allow end users to buy homes with confidence.
Yu Eui-dong, chair of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, said, "President Lee talks about normalizing the market, but he is repeating the failures of the Moon Jae-in administration by leaving supply regulations in place, increasing tax burdens, and tightening lending." He added, "Normalizing real estate policy does not mean controlling the market, but making it work properly. We must revive the private supply sector, protect the housing ladder for end users, and rebuild the tax system based on rationality and predictability."
The forum was held under the theme, "From Regulation to Market, from Punishment to Rationality." It was attended by Shim Kyo-yeon, head of the Konkuk University Graduate School of Real Estate and a member of the party's special committee on normalizing real estate policy, along with other experts and officials from the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The experts proposed measures such as expanding policy loan limits for young people and newlyweds in regional areas who are actual homebuyers, raising the loan-to-value ratio for relocation loans, and temporarily easing restrictions on the transfer of association membership rights.
Shim said, "He asked whether it is right to take out a loan to buy a house to make money, but that is a declaration of war against introductory economics." He added that there were even concerns that "the Chinese sucker system could be implemented in Korea." O Moon-seok, chairman of the Korean Association of Tax Policy, also called for the abolition of the Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax. O said, "The holding tax should never have been created under tax law in the first place," and argued that "incorporating it into the Property Tax and revising the progressive tax rates on property tax would be consistent with tax principles."
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