It appears the performance of Didimdol loans in the second half of last year fell to less than half. Didimdol loans are a program that supports first-time home purchase funds for people without homes at low interest rates, and the Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG) manages the loans. This is analyzed as the impact of the government strengthening mortgage loan regulations last year.
According to data submitted by People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jong-uk, a member of the National Assembly's Land Infrastructure and Transport Committee, to HUG on the 7th, the number of first-time Didimdol loans from Nov. last year to Feb. this year totaled 4,567. That is down 57.9% from 10,844 in the same period a year earlier. During the same period, loan aggregates also fell 67.8%, from 2.02 trillion won to 651.8 billion won.
This is analyzed as due to the government strengthening policy loan requirements last year in line with its household loans volume management measures. Earlier, in the June 27 measures last year, the government tightened the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for mortgage loans for the purpose of first-time dwellings purchases in the Seoul metropolitan area and regulated area from 80% to 70%, and applied this to policy loans as well. Didimdol loans require the dwellings sale price to be 500 million won or less; applying an LTV of 70% to this reduced the maximum limit for first-time Didimdol loans from 300 million won to 240 million won.
Lee said, "Without fundamental measures for residential stability, the government is tightening loans, and while working-class people and the young who relied on policy loans are losing opportunities to buy their own homes, a distorted structure is emerging in which only buyers with funding capacity are purchasing houses."