[Anchor]

Guri has recently been designated as an additional regulated area, joining Hwaseong's Dongtan and Yongin's Giheung. As buying interest shifts to neighboring regions to avoid these regulations, concerns over a balloon effect are emerging.

Reporter Baegun visited the scene to investigate.

[Reporter]

An apartment complex with 600 households in Guri, Gyeonggi Province.

A 59-square-meter unit, which traded for 1.04 billion won in February of this year, rose by 55 million won in just two months. The upward trend accelerated, reaching 1.22 billion won late last month.

Due to its proximity to Seoul, which ensures solid demand from actual residents, and its status as a non-regulated area that attracted investment demand, apartment prices in Guri have risen by 8.2 percent this year alone.

However, since the designation as a regulated area two days ago, inquiries from buyers have noticeably decreased.

[Jo Won-guk / Real Estate Agent in Guri, Gyeonggi Province: There are almost no investment inquiries. Those who are asking are actual residents, people who want to move in, asking how much of a loan they can get.]

On the other hand, the atmosphere in the adjacent Dasan New Town in Namyangju is different.

For an 84-square-meter unit listed at 1.15 billion won on June 29, the asking price jumped by 150 million won to 1.3 billion won just one day after the government announced the additional regulated areas.

The expectation that investment demand previously headed toward Guri will shift here, combined with steady demand from actual residents, is driving up asking prices.

[Seo Mi-ra / Real Estate Agent in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province: More people are holding back on properties that already have tenants... They have decided that they are not in a situation where they need to sell urgently.]

Similar phenomena are appearing in Byeongjeom-gu, Hwaseong, which is adjacent to Dongtan, and Manan-gu, Anyang, near existing regulated areas.

However, analysts suggest that this is merely an increase in asking prices and that there are many variables remaining in the market, so a wait-and-see approach with reduced transaction volume is expected for the time being.

[Park Won-gap / Senior Real Estate Specialist at KB Kookmin Bank: Most core areas are already tied up as regulated areas, so the balloon effect is expected to be limited. There is also the possibility of a base interest rate hike in the second half of the year, so it would be better to approach the market more cautiously.]

The market's greatest interest lies in the real estate tax reform plan scheduled to be announced at the end of this month.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) stated in its Korea Economic Survey released today (July 2) that "a revenue-neutral shift from transaction taxes to holding taxes would contribute to a more efficient housing market."

Reported by Baegun | Video by Kim Jun-hee | Graphics by Park Tae-young | VJ by Jeong Han-wook