"Yoon Administration's Housing Permits Worse Than During COVID-19" [2024 National Audit]

Seoul Permits and Construction Starts at Half Level
LH Public Housing Falls Short of Target by Less Than 1%

Over the two years since the launch of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration (June 2022 to May 2024), nationwide permits and groundbreaking performances have been found to be even lower than during the COVID-19 pandemic period.

View of downtown apartments from Namsan, Seoul. / Photo by Yonhap News

According to data submitted to the office of Lee Yeon-hee, a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH), nationwide housing permits during the first two years of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration totaled 867,000 units, and groundbreaking was 583,000 units.

This is worse than the performance during the first two years of the Moon Jae-in administration (June 2017 to May 2019), which recorded 1.16 million permits and 1.001 million groundbreaking units. It is also lower than the numbers during the pandemic period (1.056 million permits and 1.091 million groundbreaking units).

In particular, in Seoul, housing permits and groundbreaking during the first two years of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration were each around 70,000 units, less than half of the Moon Jae-in administration’s first two years (180,000 permits and 163,000 groundbreaking units). Lee pointed out that this is also low compared to the pandemic period, when permits were 138,000 units and groundbreaking was 135,000 units.

Lee said, "Considering such poor performance over the past two years, it seems realistically impossible for the Yoon Suk-yeol administration to supply 2.7 million housing units within its term as promised."

Furthermore, LH’s public housing permits and groundbreaking performances were reported to have not even reached 1% of the target. According to the lawmaker’s office, LH’s public housing permit plan for this year was 67,962 units, but as of the end of August, the actual performance was only 94 units (0.14%). The number of groundbreaking units was 236, which is only 0.47% of the plan (50,120 units).

There were 154,888 housing units in 397 districts where LH had received project approval but had not started groundbreaking. This includes 39,841 units in 89 candidate districts for the 3rd New Towns. Among these, 7,447 units in 13 districts are planned to begin groundbreaking after 2028 due to "immature conditions for land use and other factors."

Lee said, "The large gap between President Yoon Suk-yeol’s election pledges and the actual housing supply performance, along with the supply cliff in public housing, is a very serious issue as it could lead to a surge in housing prices in the future."