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With the housing market here in the nation sputtering along, the land ministry has some
ideas about how to get it back on track, and laid them out at the presidential office on
Wednesday. Kim Ji-yeon reports. During a policy briefing
at the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae on Wednesday, the Ministry of Land, Maritime
and Environment called for revitalizing the housing market by easing restrictions.
The pitch included a number of measures. Regarding the reconstruction of houses, the
land ministry said there is a need to scale back on some of the policies imposed back
in 2006... that were put in place to quell housing speculation.
That could include abolishing a policy that requires homeowners to pay back some of the
profits gained from rising house prices after renovations.
Limiting a household to buying just one house in some areas of the Seoul metropolitan area
would also no longer apply.
The ministry also wants to ease the eligibility for government-backed mortgage loans to include
more home buyers. First-time buyers are currently only eligible
for loans that have interest rates in the one-percent range,... but with the change,
those who have not owned a house for five years would be eligible as well.
The ministry aims to make public rental housing available to 90-thousand households this year
and to 500-thousand households by the year 2017.
The set of measures is being introduced in part to counter soaring housing rental prices
that have risen since 2008. The goal is to ease the imbalance between
supply and demand in "jeonse" -- a rental system unique to Korea that requires one large,
lump-sum deposit. The task of boosting the nation's faltering
housing market has been a major issue for economic policymakers, as more than half of
Korean households' assets are in real estate. And because of that, many fear that the ailing
housing market could have a negative impact on the nation's consumption, which makes up
a majority of the nation's gross domestic product.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.