Daegu city announced Monday that it has submitted three policy proposals — one each covering finance, taxation and housing — to the relevant central government ministries, urging measures to stabilize the regional housing market.
In its submission to the Financial Services Commission, the city asked that the stress debt service ratio not be applied to regional markets, or at minimum kept at its current level, to ease the financing burden on genuine homebuyers struggling amid high interest rates and tightened household lending rules.
On the tax side, the city called for an extension beyond the government's proposed one-year renewal of the special tax treatment for unsold units in completed regional housing developments.
Regarding housing policy, the city proposed raising the purchase price at which the Korea Land and Housing Corporation buys unsold completed units in regional markets — from the current ceiling of 90 percent of appraised value to as much as 100 percent.
Daegu also plans to submit additional proposals, including expanded preferential interest rates on policy loans for buyers of unsold units, priority allocation of project financing guarantees to regional developments, the inclusion of metropolitan city urban cores in the second-home tax exemption scheme, and exemption from the excess-profit recovery levy on regional reconstruction projects.
The city said it had gathered firsthand input from the market through multiple sessions, including emergency economic policy meetings, housing policy advisory councils and industry roundtables.
"Instability in regional housing markets and the slump in construction activity risk deepening the polarization caused by the concentration of resources in the greater Seoul area, and could ultimately undermine the vitality of the national economy as a whole," said Kim Byung-hwan, head of Daegu's architecture and housing bureau. "We hope the government will actively reflect these concerns in its policies."
kbj7653@heraldcorp.com
