▲ Reconstruction site of an apartment complex in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the 23rd.
The People Power Party (PPP) launched a joint offensive today (the 23rd) against the National Public Debate on Real Estate Policy presided over by President Lee Jae-myung, asking, "Have you completely given up on normalizing the real estate market?"
Na Kyung-won, a five-term lawmaker representing Seoul, strongly criticized the event in a Facebook post earlier today, calling it "a declaration of a socialist neo-privileged class where the public is dragged down by real estate loan regulations while they alone enjoy real estate privileges."
Targeting President Lee's remark during the debate that "even to reach advanced nation levels, property taxes would need to be raised threefold [compared to the current level]," Na pointed out, "Words fail me at the hypocrisy of bringing up a 'threefold property tax' increase for the public the moment he sold off his own house."
She added, "It is truly lamentable to witness the reality of South Korea broadcast live into living rooms—a brazen 'law-dodging' president who bypasses real estate regulations designed to squeeze the public by using 1.7 billion won in private financing, putting on a preposterous show that beats down the public's real estate while maximizing their own real estate profits."
Park Soo-young, a two-term lawmaker representing Busan, also dismissed the debate on Facebook as an "imperious, predetermined show that ignores the market and the public."
Park took issue with President Lee's remarks: "In the case of reconstruction, the number of households sometimes increases, but it doesn't seem to increase by a large margin, and for redevelopment, it seems normal for the total number of move-ins to decrease."
He argued, "President Lee denigrated maintenance projects, which are the core of downtown housing supply, with absurd logic," and asked, "If we do not increase private urban renewal, exactly where does the government plan to supply housing in the Seoul metropolitan area?"
Reacting to President Lee's comment that "there is general agreement on the fact that property taxes should be strengthened," Park protested, "This is like reheating and re-reheating the populist, divide-and-conquer playbook of the Moon Jae-in administration, which miserably failed by trying to control real estate through taxes instead of supply."
Chief Spokesperson Choi Bo-yul also released a commentary criticizing the debate as nothing more than a "public opinion manipulation show," adding, "While turning a blind eye to the cries from the field and warnings from the market, it merely served to justify the government's policy failures."
"Above all, President Lee's process of selling his Bundang apartment is the height of hypocrisy," Choi noted. "While building a harsh wall of loan regulations for the public and trampling on their dreams of owning a home, the president himself mobilized a bizarre private loan maneuver by setting up a collateral mortgage worth 1.77 billion won for the buyer while selling his expensive 2.9 billion won apartment."
Choi emphasized, "If even the highest authority finds normal transactions impossible and has to resort to tricks and detours, it is a self-admission that this administration's real estate policy has completely failed," adding, "What the public wants right now is not the president's self-praising debate, but a fundamental overhaul of real estate policy."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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