▲ Apartment file photo
More than 600 reports related to real estate price-fixing collusion have been filed over the past five years, data showed.
About 80 percent of the reports were concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area, and investigations led to actions such as requests for police investigations in 94 cases.
According to data submitted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to Representative Yum Tae-young of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, on the 24th, a total of 617 reports regarding housing price collusion were filed with the Real Estate Transaction Order Disruption Reporting Center from 2022 to the end of August this year.
By region, Gyeonggi Province recorded the highest number with 251 cases, followed by Seoul with 205 cases, Busan with 51 cases, and Incheon with 27 cases.
Reports filed in the Seoul metropolitan area—including Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon—totaled 483 cases, accounting for 78.3 percent of the total.
Out of all reports, excluding duplicate submissions, withdrawals, and insufficient supplementary data, 487 cases were subjected to investigation, and corrective measures were taken in 121 cases.
Among them, 94 cases faced actions such as requests for formal investigations.
Actions such as investigation requests were also concentrated in the capital area.
Seoul accounted for 54 cases, Gyeonggi 20 cases, and Incheon 3 cases, bringing the total for the metropolitan area to 77 cases.
This represents 81.9 percent of all investigation requests and related actions.
The current Licensed Real Estate Agents Act prohibits actions that intend to exert undue influence on market prices, such as using notices or online communities to induce people not to commission transactions below a specific price, or restricting and inducing limitations on real estate transactions through specific brokers.
Under the Licensed Real Estate Agents Act, individuals caught engaging in housing price collusion can face up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won.
Representative Yum Tae-young emphasized, "Housing price collusion undermines the order of the housing market and hinders rational transactions by actual homebuyers. We must closely examine regions and types where reports repeatedly occur to prevent recurrence."
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