"We’ve lived here for 20 years—why are you telling us to leave?"...The ‘Public Housing Exit War’ Begins as Home Prices Rise [What Kind of ‘Public’ and for Whom? 3]

[Financial News] On the morning of the first, Songpa Pine Town Complex 10 in Songpa-gu, Seoul, came into view after a roughly three-minute walk from Jangji Station on Seoul Subway Line 8. Although the complex was quiet on a rainy weekday morning, the voices of residents living there under the long-term deposit-lease housing program, or SHIFT, were growing louder.
A tenants’ group made up of long-term deposit-lease residents held an information session on July 11 attended by about 200 people and called for contract renewals and phased conversion to ownership. Their demands include guaranteed renewals for genuine demand from people without homes, priority opportunities to convert to ownership for residents who have lived there for 20 years, and resident participation in the policymaking process.
Public housing was established to provide stable housing opportunities at costs below market prices. It is broadly divided into public rental housing and public-sale housing and is offered in various forms. However, contrary to its original purpose, disputes have continued to arise.
Long-term deposit-lease tenants are asking, "Why do we have to leave after living here for 20 years?" Meanwhile, owners of land-lease housing are protesting, "Why should the public own the land beneath the apartments where I live?"

SHIFT is a public rental housing program created by Seoul that allows residents to live for up to 20 years with a deposit lower than prevailing nearby jeonse prices. The program enables middle-income households without homes to live stably for up to 20 years at about 80% of surrounding market rates. The first recruitment notice was issued in 2007, meaning the first households will reach the end of their terms in 2027.
An official from Seoul’s Housing Supply Planning Team told Financial News by phone, "There were 567 households that signed contracts in the first year after the 2007 recruitment notice. Some households have moved elsewhere, and 310 households will reach the 20-year limit next year." This means about 54.7% of the initial contract holders have continued to live there for nearly 20 years.
Among them, 38 households in Songpa Pine Town Complex 10 and 51 households in Complex 12 will reach the end of their terms next year, respectively. Although there are public rental housing households in the complexes, their contracts began at different times, so their terms will expire sequentially from 2028 onward.
The number of expiring contracts will grow. Seoul expects the number of households reaching the end of their terms to nearly double after the 310 households next year, with about 9,000 households expected to reach the 20-year limit over the next four to five years.

Like SHIFT operated by the Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation (SH), public rental housing takes various forms depending on the operating entity. Its key advantages are low rents and the ability to remain in the housing for an extended period.
A survey by the LH Land and Housing Research Institute of 10,156 households living in public rental housing nationwide found that 23.6% had lived in one of five major types of public rental housing for at least 10 years—about three times the 8.2% rate for private jeonse and monthly-rental housing. Public rental housing rents were 30% to 70% lower than those of comparable private rentals, with the monthly savings estimated at 110,000 to 380,000 won depending on the type.
Among respondents, 80.6% said that reduced rental costs had helped them after moving in, while 80.2% cited residential stability from long-term occupancy. In particular, the LH survey found that about 70% of all public rental households had no plans to move.

The high satisfaction with public rental housing is turning into conflict with the authorities that operate it. That is why residents who moved into Songpa Pine Town through SHIFT are protesting.
Kwanghoon Lee, chairman of the Seoul Public Rental Housing Tenants’ Rights Promotion Committee, said in a recent media interview, "Existing tenants should be allowed to continue living there, while new public rental housing should be added separately."
Seoul’s position is firm. A Seoul official stated, "Long-term deposit-lease housing is a system supplied with the type of project itself limiting the maximum period of residence to 20 years. The maximum actual residence period is 20 years, and that is what the contracts specified."
The official added, "Long-term deposit-lease housing provided a period in which residents could live stably for an extended time and prepare to move to another home. It is difficult to say that residents acquire the right to remain after the contract ends simply because the housing is public."
Seoul has also established plans for units recovered when contracts expire. Some will be converted into the Mirinae House public housing program, with plans to supply an average of more than 400 units annually from 2027 through 2031. Mirinae House is the ‘Long-Term Jeonse Housing II’ program, introduced in 2024 after SHIFT was redesigned to address the declining birthrate.
A Seoul official emphasized, "Not all units whose contracts expire will be supplied through the Mirinae House public housing program. Seoul will decide whether to supply them as existing long-term deposit-lease housing or through Mirinae House, taking into account new long-term deposit-lease units secured through redevelopment and reconstruction projects that year. If existing residents do not move out, this could lead to an infringement of the rights of the next tenants."
Conflict is also emerging in public-sale housing. The issue involves some residents of LH Gangnam Breeze Hill in Jagok-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. They purchased their homes under a land-lease arrangement. Land-lease housing refers to homes in which residents own the buildings while LH owns the land. Because the land price is excluded from the sale price, the initial purchase cost is lower.
Residents who recently purchased their homes under the land-lease arrangement are demanding that LH sell them the land it owns.
The calls grew louder after an 84.98-square-meter unit at Gangnam Breeze Hill sold for 1.385 billion won in May this year. A similarly sized unit at nearby Gangnam Jagok IPARK sold for 2.32 billion won, prompting residents to demand the right to benefit from the increase in land value.
Demand for land-lease housing remains high, however. About 20,000 people applied for the 500 units offered through advance reservations at Godeok Gangil 3 Complex in 2023. At the time, the estimated sale price for a 59-square-meter unit was about 355 million won, while the monthly land rent was around 400,000 won.

Some have raised the possibility that the conflicts will intensify. That is because the supply of public housing itself has grown substantially.
According to a 2026 report by the Korea Center for City and Environment Research (KOCER), Seoul’s stock of long-term public rental housing increased 2.35-fold, from 127,863 units in 2007 to 300,846 units in 2024. Its share of all housing in Seoul also rose from 4.0% to 7.7% over the same period.
Nationwide, long-term public rental housing totaled 1.433 million units in 2024, accounting for 6.2% of all housing.
Some are calling for exit strategies to be prepared.
The argument is that while public-housing policy has so far focused on ‘who should receive housing and how cheaply,’ it must now consider ‘when to end the benefits and how to settle housing rights and asset values.’
Eunyeong Choi, director of the Urban Research Institute, said, "Among people who have lived in public housing for 20 years, some may still have nowhere to go if public rental housing is not available, while others may continue living there despite having sufficient financial means. Policies need to distinguish between them based on income and assets."
[email protected] Heeseon Kim, Yunkyung Seo Reporter