The number of regular recruitments for public rental housing will be expanded to 10 times a year. People who need housing stability are expected to have more frequent opportunities to move into public rentals.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) said on Apr. 8 that they will overhaul the way public rental tenants are recruited by expanding regular recruitments from seven times a year (March, April, May, July, September, October, November) to 10 times a year (March to December, monthly).
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) will also raise predictability by consolidating locally announced ad hoc recruitments into a regular monthly date (Seoul metropolitan area on the 5th, non-capital regions on the 15th). It will also expand links with private platforms, including KB Real Estate, to improve access to recruitment notices.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) will also disclose public rental vacancy information that people have not been able to see, starting in September, so they can anticipate whether tenants will be recruited in areas and complexes of interest in advance. It will consult to disclose vacancy information from local corporations as well, including Seoul Housing and Urban Development Corporation, Gyeonggi Housing & Urban Development Corporation, and Incheon Housing & City Development Corporation.
The scope of recruiting waiting-list applicants will also be expanded. When a vacancy arises in public rental housing, the scope of recruitment for waiting-list applicants will be widened so they can move in efficiently according to the preassigned order. At the initial recruitment of public rental housing tenants, about 40% additional applicants will be selected so that, when vacancies occur due to move-outs, they can move in according to their preassigned order.
In particular, when recruiting public rental waiting-list applicants, the plan is to improve the system by grouping similar unit sizes and complexes to select waiting-list applicants and assign queue numbers. Currently, when announcing public rental recruitment, waiting-list applicants are selected and queue numbers are assigned by detailed unit size and type within the housing complex.
The expansion of the recruitment scope will be applied as early as the end of this year after determining the detailed expansion range within a scope where public preferences are similar across sizes and complexes of dwellings, in order to maximize people's freedom to choose where to live.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) will also introduce a qualification maintenance period and push to build a new system for public rental move-ins to ease public inconvenience such as repetitive eligibility verifications, lack of information on the likelihood of moving in, and uncertainty about move-in timing.
If an applicant applies to move into public rentals and undergoes eligibility verification, the eligibility for the same type and the same qualification will be maintained for one year, eliminating the hassle of preparing documents again each time the applicant applies to a different complex.
In addition, a new system will be built to make it easier and faster for public rental demanders to move in by centralizing recruitment information that is now dispersed by operator, shortening the time required to move in through preliminary eligibility verification, recommending dwellings available for move-in based on demanders' information, and presenting the expected move-in time. The target for completion is the second half of next year.
Lee Gi-bong, director-general for housing welfare policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), said, "Public rental housing is a core policy for housing stability for people without homes," and added, "We will continue to improve the overall recruitment methods and move-in procedures for public rentals from the public's perspective so that opportunities to move into public rentals are expanded, and those who wish to move in can do so more easily and quickly, leading to fewer vacancies."