People Power Party chief spokesperson Choi Bo-yun [Yonhap]
People Power Party chief spokesperson Choi Bo-yun [Yonhap]

The People Power Party on Thursday criticized a real estate policy forum presided over by President Lee Jae Myung as a "predetermined, opinion-manufacturing show" designed to build justification for decisions already made, and urged a fundamental shift in the government's housing policy direction.

PPP Chief Spokesperson Choi Bo-yun said in a statement that the 100-minute forum "hung the fine-sounding title of communicating with the public, but in the end did nothing more than justify the government's policy failures while ignoring the desperate cries from the scene and the warnings from the market."

Choi said what the public wants is not "one-sided policy boasting or lecturing," but an honest admission from the government of why even northern Seoul has entered what she called "the era of 2 billion won for a standard-sized apartment" and why young people and low-income renters without homes have been pushed off the housing ladder — followed by a sweeping policy overhaul.

She also raised the recently controversial manner in which President Lee sold his Bundang apartment, criticizing him for using a "private loan workaround" — setting a maximum secured debt of 1.77 billion won on the property for the buyer while selling the apartment for 2.9 billion won ($1.96 million) — even as the government imposes strict loan restrictions on ordinary citizens.

Choi went on to say that "if even the most powerful person in the country has to find a detour because a normal transaction is impossible, then the current government's real estate policy has failed," adding that "an honest apology from the president for his own transaction and an acknowledgment of real estate policy failure are the starting point for solving all these problems."

On the government's broader real estate policies, Choi said harsh financial regulations and tax measures "have not stabilized the market but instead produced only a balloon effect, driving up home prices and rental costs in outlying areas." She urged the government to immediately ease the blanket loan restrictions that are "holding back young people and genuine homebuyers" and to move at once toward a fundamental real estate policy overhaul that the public can actually feel.


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