The South Korean government will unveil a new set of measures later this week to curb price hikes in the local housing market, official sources said Wednesday.
The country has been experiencing skyrocketing housing prices in Seoul and surrounding areas, despite a series of government-led financial and administrative measures.
The government has imposed a ban on bank loans given to multiple-home owners, forbidden people from reselling apartment purchase rights and levied higher taxes on real estate transactions.
Despite such measures, speculative home buyers have not budged an inch, and the upward trend of apartment prices in the Seoul area has actually accelerated.
This has led to the government and the ruling party to consider enacting even stronger measures to cool the property market down ahead of the autumn moving season.
There has been speculation that policymakers will further tighten financial guidelines on bank loans given to people who lease homes, who in the past have been subject to looser lending rules. Still tighter rules may be applied to multiple-home owners.
Earlier, the government made it far easier for lessors and landlords to borrow money from banks so as to boost property rental business. But such benefits will be mostly scrapped as they are now blamed for fanning the recent housing price inflation.
The government will, moreover, likely impose higher comprehensive real estate taxes on expensive houses and strengthen regulations governing the trading of ownership rights for apartments.
The measures also include plans to increase the supply of apartments in Seoul and surrounding areas to strike a better balance between supply and demand and help tame rampant prices.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will seek new housing sites to build more apartment buildings and expand on plans to build 362,000 new homes by 2022. (Yonhap)