On the 23rd, Jin Mi-yun, head professor at the graduate school of real estate at Myongji University, suggested that to increase the supply of dwellings, authorities should sort projects with a high likelihood of actual ground-breaking and focus financial and tax benefits on them, rather than uniformly supporting projects that have obtained permits. Because declines in permitting and ground-breaking could lead to shortages in completions and move-ins years later, stalled projects due to funding shortages and other issues need to be restarted to restore the supply consolidation of dwellings.
At the "National public debate on real estate policy" held at the KBS annex public hall in Yeouido, Seoul, that day, Jin presented on the theme "Measures to expand the supply of dwellings for stabilizing people's housing" and said, "We must restore the dwellings supply pipeline so that permitting leads to ground-breaking, and ground-breaking leads to completion and move-ins."
Jin said, "What is most concerning now is not a temporary decrease in supply but that the supply consolidation is being cut," noting, "Due to the fallout from the jeonse fraud, tenants' trust in non-apartment housing has fallen sharply."
Jin argued that it is necessary to focus financial and tax support on projects that have secured land and completed permitting but have not been able to start construction due to financing problems. However, to avoid stoking expectations of rising home prices, she said support recipients should be selected by examining project conditions and the likelihood of ground-breaking.
She said, "There is a need to support the inventory that can break ground first," adding, "Rather than across-the-board support, assistance should be differentiated according to project conditions and the actual likelihood of ground-breaking."
For the public institutional sector, she called for a role to offset the decline in private supply during a real estate downturn. She said authorities should not stop at increasing supply volumes but should provide dwellings in price ranges that people without homes can afford and in diverse types. She also said the "housing ladder" function to help first-time homebuyers purchase their own homes needs to be strengthened.
Jin said, "While speeding up the supply of key sites, we also need to design in detail what kinds of homes to supply," adding, "People will not feel the expansion of supply just by speeding up." She continued, "For the public, what matters is whether the homes being supplied are 'homes I can move into,'" and said, "We need to supply diverse dwellings at prices people can afford."
She also proposed redeveloping industrial and commercial areas with diminished utility due to changes in industrial structure and employment and consumption patterns into mixed-use complexes. The idea is to select sites where functions have declined or utilization is low and introduce diverse functions such as residential and commercial.
She assessed that easing floor area ratios alone would not be enough to speed up private redevelopment and reconstruction. She said issues that arise at each project stage—such as construction costs, financing costs, various levies, and internal conflicts within associations—must be addressed together.
She also proposed fostering professional rental operators to fill the gap between public rentals and private rentals supplied by individual multiple-home owners. Jin said, "Professional rental operators should be able to lease newly built dwellings for long periods," while adding, "Public interest commensurate with the support, transparent management, and obligations to protect tenants should be imposed."
She said overlapping regulatory regimes—such as adjusted target areas, speculative overheating districts, and land transaction permit zones—also need to be overhauled. Jin said, "While maintaining the functions of market stabilization and curbing speculation, it is necessary to streamline the complex system to reduce transaction inconveniences and the public's burden."