Site Price of Public Apartments to be Disclosed in July

The Uri Party decided to push forward a plan to disclose the home lots of government-owned apartments as early as July.

Uri Party’s floor leader Kim Geun-tae and chairman of the Policy Committee Chung Sae-kyun, and the Minister of Construction and Transportation Kang Dong-suk will attend a meeting on April 26 and discuss issues for stabilizing housing price.

“We have pledged to publicize the selling price of apartments during the general election,” an official of Uri Party’s policy committee said. “To begin with, public sectors such as the Korea National Housing Corporation and the Urban Development Corporations from every local government are targeted to announce the prices of building sites starting in July.”

However, the official said that the first stage of public announcement would be limited to building sites of public-owned apartments only, and that disclosing construction cost will be discussed later. He said, “Among the apartment prices, the building site price of the metropolitan area occupies 60 to 70 percent, and that of big cities in provincial areas 30 to 40 percent. Based on the study, it is expected that disclosing the building site price issued by Korea Land Corporation will lead private companies to bring down the apartment sales price.”

The Uri Party is likely to request the agenda for government’s public apartments’ price list on April 26 during its’ in-house meeting. In addition, the Ministry of Construction and Transportation reportedly is considering an early disclosure of the price of building sites.

Meanwhile, regarding the disclosure of selling prices for private apartments which some civil groups have been claiming for, the Uri Party reaffirmed its’ negative stances, saying that the party would never consider revealing it to the public.

Young-Hae Choi yhchoi65@donga.com