'Pro-government housing trio' turns on Lee administration over soaring apartment prices

Lee Gwang-su, head of Gwangsu's Real Estate Agency, appears on the YouTube channel "Choi Wook's Maebulshow" on Monday to criticize the government's housing policy. [YouTube channel capture]

Han Moon-do, an adjunct professor at Myongji University who had long defended the Lee Jae Myung administration's housing policy, has voiced sharp concern over the government's response to rising apartment prices in Seoul, which have climbed for more than 80 consecutive weeks. Lee Gwang-su, head of Gwangsu's Real Estate Agency, also launched a pointed attack on the government's housing policy before abruptly declaring he would stop commenting on real estate altogether. Chae Sang-wook, head of Connected Ground, similarly expressed disappointment with government policy earlier this year — meaning all three figures once known as the "pro-government housing trio" have now broken ranks.

Speaking on YTN Radio's "Vivid Economy" program on Thursday, Han referenced the government's announcement of a tax reform plan and said he had concluded that officials had no intention of reining in housing prices. "I get the strong sense that vested interests and cartels have been moving in a big way," he said.

He added that the government's measures had failed to adequately account for market realities.

Using a soccer field analogy, Han said: "If you decide no one can play in the mud, you have to build a grass pitch. If you don't, and you just tell people not to play in the mud, where are they supposed to go?"

He also said the government's plan was missing any measures for the jeonse and monthly rent market. "If supply has clearly run short, any package should include steps to stabilize jeonse and monthly rent — what we're seeing feels forced," he said.

Han went on to say that housing issues had also weighed on President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating. "I understand the president's approval rating has fallen considerably," he said. "Housing is the single biggest factor behind that decline."

A Gallup Korea poll released Friday showed President Lee's job approval at 38 percent — the lowest since he took office.

Other real estate experts who had previously leaned toward the ruling camp have also been voicing concern about government policy in recent weeks.

Lee Gwang-su appeared on the YouTube channel "Choi Wook's Maebulshow" on Monday and said the Democratic Party and the government were being "extremely complacent." "If things continue like this, housing prices will keep rising, the market will fall into chaos and it will ultimately drag down the administration," he warned.

On the government's housing supply measures, Lee said the approach was like "deciding to farm rice paddies when a war has just broken out."

Lee, who had argued for eight years that housing prices would fall, reversed course on the program, citing Bank of Korea money supply data and trends in apartment move-in volumes in the greater Seoul area to warn of a potential price surge. "As the money supply keeps growing, the value of money falls and a gravitational pull pushes up real asset prices," he said. "Even if interest rates rise, inflation is outpacing them, leaving real rates in negative territory, and a shortage of move-in supply in the metropolitan area will persist through 2028, stoking demand for jeonse and monthly rent and driving buyers into the market," he said.

He then said he would no longer comment on real estate. "I'm going to talk about something more relaxing — semiconductor shares going up," he said.

Chae Sang-wook, the third member of the so-called pro-government housing trio alongside Han and Lee, had already broken with the government in May, saying that if the administration failed to produce credible measures to stabilize home sales and the lease market within a year, "it would be right not to remain pro-government."

Kim In-man, head of Kim In-man Real Estate Economic Research Institute, also criticized the government's policy approach for treating even single-homeowners as speculative buyers. "I believe single-home ownership should never be touched under any circumstances, yet even non-resident single-homeowners are being treated as speculators," he said. "I cannot shake the feeling that this was reform that was not ready."

He warned that the policy burden could end up falling on the very people it was meant to protect. "Tenants and people without homes are the ones who need protecting — they are also the government's support base — and right now they are being pushed to the edge of a cliff," he said.

yeonjoo7@heraldcorp.com