President Lee Jae-myung on the 23rd said, "If you set a target for dwellings prices and say you will suppress or adjust demand and supply to fit it, isn't that close to a socialist state?"
On this day at the "National Grand Debate on Real Estate Policy" held at the KBS annex in Yeouido, Lee said this in response to the argument that "the government must first properly set its real estate policy goals, but they are not clear at present," saying, "The government's policy goal, in my view, is not 'let's force prices down.'"
Lee said, "That's not even possible," and added, "In Korea's evolved economic situation, completely ignoring market order and forcibly manipulating demand and supply, or controlling prices to raise or lower them, is hard to set as a policy goal." He continued, "But we should prevent prices from being wrongly formed by abnormal demand and supply," adding, "It's about normalization."
He again mentioned the stance of "high burden on high-priced dwellings." Lee said, "I believe that if the price doesn't matter and a person has the economic means, that should be respected. For such apartments, there's no need to think 'prices must not exceed a certain level.'" He also said, "Even within the same area, if there is scarcity or significance, it's entirely possible for a transaction to be expensive. Why would we control that?" and added, "But there should be a corresponding social burden for it."
He also said, "We should respect market prices formed by appropriate demand and supply according to demand and supply," but added, "If everyone thinks, 'If you buy a house it makes money; let's even borrow and bet our lives to buy,' and everyone rushes only there, it becomes a problem someday." He then said, "The idea is to prevent that in advance (through regulation, etc.)."