50,000 new housing supplies planned for 3rd new city project

The South Korean government has decided to supply an additional 50,000 public housing units in the third new city and new development sites in the metropolitan area. It will also increase the size of Public Finance (PF) guarantees to assist construction companies facing difficulties in obtaining PF loans. The aim is to prevent a potential housing shortage and instability in housing prices as housing permits and construction volumes have sharply declined this year. However, the effectiveness of public supply remains uncertain as it is a med-to-long-term project, and there are no immediate solutions to increase housing supply in downtown Seoul where prices are currently rising.

On Tuesday, the government held the 6th Real Estate-related Ministerial Meeting at the Seoul Government Complex and announced the "Housing Supply Activation Plan for Housing Stability of the People" containing these measures. First, in the public sector, an additional 120,000 homes will be supplied, or the supply timing will be expedited. In the third new city area, they will expand housing sites to build an additional 30,000 homes and bring forward the announcement of new development sites to November this year, increasing the scale to 85,000 units, up by 20,000 units. Public housing sites whose projects have been delayed after private sales will be converted into public projects, providing around 5,000 public housing units.

In the private sector, the government will relax the restriction on transferring publicly auctioned housing sites to other developers for a period of one year. The size of the real estate PF loan guarantee will also be expanded from 10 trillion to 25 trillion won. To stimulate demand for non-apartments, individuals who own small homes under 60㎡ (appraised value of 160 million won in the metropolitan area, 100 million won in other regions) will be treated as first-time homebuyers during the subscription process.


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