[AKYUNG Poll] Real Estate Policy Shows Slight Preference for 'Lee Jae-myung'

47.9% of Respondents Prefer Candidate Lee Jae-myung's Real Estate Policy Direction

[Asia Economy Reporters Kum Boryeong and Jeon Jinyoung] In terms of individual support, Yoon Seok-yeol, the presidential candidate of the People Power Party, led Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, but public evaluation of real estate pledges leaned more toward Lee's side.

In this survey, respondents were asked which of the two directions they preferred regarding real estate policy: "making transactions transparent and suppressing speculative demand to recover unearned income" or "activating real estate transactions by easing comprehensive real estate tax and reducing capital gains tax." The former summarizes Lee's real estate policy pledges, and the latter represents Yoon's. Accordingly, 47.9% preferred the former, while 41.4% chose the latter.

The argument that speculative demand should be suppressed to recover unearned income received high support among those in their 40s (53.8%), and regionally in the Chungcheong area (55.0%) and Honam area (60.9%). Conversely, support was lowest among those in their 20s (40.7%) and in Gangwon and Jeju (38.8%). By party support, 78.0% of Democratic Party supporters and 22.5% of People Power Party supporters favored this, showing much higher enthusiasm among Democratic Party supporters.

On the other hand, the direction of "activating real estate transactions by easing comprehensive real estate tax and reducing capital gains tax" received majority support in Gangwon and Jeju (50.4%). By age group, those in their 50s (43.9%) and 18-29 years old (42.5%) viewed this positively. By party support, People Power Party (67.5%) showed the highest support, followed by the People Party (47.1%) and non-affiliated voters (41.3%).

Meanwhile, candidate Lee emphasized, "I will recover 100% of unearned income generated from real estate except for actual residents." Accordingly, he is accelerating legislation on the development profit recovery system, which recovers excess profits generated from land development. He is also maintaining a stance to strengthen holding taxes. Lee proposed introducing a so-called "land holding tax," which levies a certain percentage of tax on all landowners, raising the effective real estate holding tax rate from the current 0.17% level to 1%. Through this, Lee claims to realize the concept of land public ownership and alleviate income polarization.

Candidate Yoon pledged a full review of the comprehensive real estate tax. He views the comprehensive real estate tax as a so-called "tax bomb" for taxpayers subject to it. In the mid to long term, he said he would consider integrating the comprehensive real estate tax into property tax or exempting it for single-homeowners. Along with this, Yoon also plans to lower capital gains tax rates to promote transactions of existing homes and induce price stabilization.

This survey was conducted by Asia Economy through Win-G Korea Consulting targeting voters aged 18 and over nationwide from the 20th to 21st of last month, with 1,025 respondents and an overall response rate of 7.5%. The survey method was 100% wireless ARS using virtual mobile phone numbers, and the sample was extracted by applying weighted values (cell weighting) by gender, age, and region based on the resident registration population as of the end of January 2021 from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The sampling error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. For detailed survey outlines, please refer to the Win-G Korea Consulting website or the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.