Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon criticized President Lee Jae-myung's explanation of real estate policy delivered at his first-anniversary press conference, calling it "a detached view that fails to understand the suffering on the ground."
Oh posted a message on his Facebook page that day titled, "The disappearance of jeonse is not normalization, but a 'policy catastrophe' in which the housing ladder for ordinary people has collapsed." At the press conference, President Lee described the recent decline in jeonse listings and the rise in jeonse and monthly rent prices as part of a normalization process, saying the sharp drop in jeonse listings occurred because people without homes bought those properties to move in, reducing demand by that much.
Oh said, "The phenomenon of jeonse disappearing now is not a natural phenomenon following some trend of the times." He added that it is "a painful result brought about by the government's mistaken real estate policy, and a scene of a 'policy catastrophe' in which the foundation of housing stability for ordinary people is being shaken."
Oh pointed to the supply decline caused by government regulations as the cause of the recent jeonse shortage in Seoul. He argued, "The jeonse market does not move on demand alone," and said, "Jeonse supply has decreased as a result of strengthened residency requirements following the expansion of land transaction permit zones across Seoul, the contraction of rental businesses due to excessive loan regulations, and continued pressure on multi-home owners." He criticized further, saying, "Such policies did not normalize the market but produced the result of rapidly pushing the market participants who supplied jeonse out of the market."
Regarding the shift from jeonse to monthly rent, he pointed out that it "is being driven forward forcibly amid a trend of rising rental prices." He added, "It is eroding the disposable income of ordinary people and pushing their lives to the edge of a cliff, yet this should not be described with the word 'normalization.'"
Pointing out that the average sale price of Seoul apartments has surpassed 1.3 billion won while the housing loan limit remains capped at 600 million won, Oh said, "In the end, they have wrecked the market so that one must have 700 million won in cash to buy a home." He noted, "With public financial support lacking, the government has no right to assess jeonse—which has been ordinary people's self-sustaining housing ladder—as a relic of history."
Oh said he felt a heavy sense of responsibility and indebtedness toward the desperate voices of households without homes, particularly during the election period, and stressed, "I will meet with the president as soon as possible to convey the accurate reality regarding the distortions in the real estate market occurring on the ground and the mistaken judgments." He added, "I will fulfill the mayor's duties to restore the collapsed housing ladder."
