President urges large-scale expansion of housing supply

President Lee Jae Myung on Friday instructed officials to boldly push for a large-scale expansion of housing supply, a presidential spokesperson said, as the government seeks to cool down heated real estate prices.

The president issued the order during a meeting with government ministries, where ministers briefed him on policy proposals to boost the housing supply, including financing measures, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said.

During the six-hour meeting, participants discussed a large-scale expansion of the housing supply and measures to promptly implement it, the spokesperson said.

“At the end of the session, Lee instructed Prime Minister Han Seong-sook and other ministers not to cling to old ways of thinking, but to make transformative decisions and boldly put them into action,” Kang said.

The meeting came as housing prices in Seoul and adjacent areas remain prohibitively high, making it a major policy task for the Lee administration to rein in the overheated real estate market.

On Monday, the government unveiled a new set of tax revisions aimed at increasing the tax burden on owners of high-value homes.

The government is also expected to announce major housing supply plans in the near future.

During a related meeting on Monday, Lee instructed officials to come up with measures to secure the maximum amount of potential housing supply as quickly as possible.

Yonhap