The chronic over-demand in Korean housing market until the mid-2000 pushed the housing prices upward continuously. This led the government to engage in the expansion of housing supplies in the market as its solution. As a result, there began to appear...
The chronic over-demand in Korean housing market until the mid-2000 pushed the housing prices upward continuously. This led the government to engage in the expansion of housing supplies in the market as its solution. As a result, there began to appear an over-supplying tendency with the apartment, which is one of the most common type of housing in Korea, leaving the problem of the unsold apartments. Especially many of the unsold apartments are located in all over the country outside of the Seoul metropolitan area. Such conditions of the unsold housings were caused not only the by over-supplying of the apartments, but also by the depletion of the capability to purchases those apartments by low or middle income classes in the society, along with many other reasons that contributed to the current situation.
With this situation on the basis, we have conducted a survey on the experts of the housing markets with a view to establish an AHP (multi-layered decision making model) to calculate an effective and efficient solution for the unsold houses.
The conclusions and the implication of this study are as follows;
Among the five major categories, the economic supports gained the highest value in its importance, followed by the facilitation through legal or regulatory supports, roles by the public sectors, roles by the private sectors, and the marketing. This implicates that the experts view the economic subsides as the most effective solution for the current problem of the unsold houses, and thought the legal and regulatory supports also important. On the other hands, the roles of the private sectors and the marketing received less attention in terms of their importance, which means that as the problem of the unsold houses is a combined result of various factors, such as, not only the problem of over-supply but also the financial, and the affordability of the houses for its potential purchasers. The effort of the private sector alone is not enough to cope with these factors, and the conventional marketing and promotion would not help to mitigate the situation, as they view the matter.
For more detailed items under one of the major category, which is the economic support, solutions such as offering favorable interest rates for the loans to be used to purchase unsold houses and tax cuts for registration and acquisition taxes were thought to be of importance. The income tax deduction for the loan was ranked relatively lower. Among the solutions from the legal, regulatory category, the mitigation of the LTV, DTI control egowed up high in importance. Suggestions such as of theparks out of the lands in old downtown areas, publicization of the land, the adoption of supply quota of housing landed lower in perceived value or importance.
As for the private sector, utilization of the house lent businesses and the real-estate investment companies were deemed to be of the highest importance. Relatively, other solutions such as giving penalty points to the construction companies with unsold apartment stocks or establishing funds for the unsold apartments failed to gain higher recognitions. As for the marketing category, the exemption of the interest for the balance amounts for the house purchase, other mitigation measures to reduce the burden of the house ownehe burden o the fortification of the concessional conditions and establishment of cooperational networks between the real estate brokehegory,he area. Conventional marketing approadeonstlike Off-Line promotioneg(e unouts, brodeures, bannehe), DMff-LinTMks ol marked lower in the rank. Lastly, in the category of the artmestate brublic sector, the solution where LH acquire the unsold apartments -Linshifting them to lent uses w o thought to be the most importance. Relatively, the management of the construction companies with larger amounts of the unsold apartments marked lower in its importance.
Of the total of 24 sub-items, the influential value of the items with higher importance was the highest with the adoption of the lower interest for the loans, followed by the acquisition of the unsold houses by LH to be shifted for leases. Then, tax cuts for the registration and acquisition taxes, as well as the property taxes follows, and the mitigation of the LTV controls, lifting of the DTI conditions for the unsold houses came next. On the other hands, the influential values of the suggestions such as the management of the construction companies with larger number of unsold houses, penalty points for such construction companies, and Off-Line promotions appeared to be very low.
This means that the experts in the real estate market views the source of the current problem not within the loose control of the construction companies or lack of promotion, marketing activities. But they do think the sky-rocketed housing prices in the past drained the affordability of the potential purchasers, which is the biggest cause of the current problem. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of the unsold houses, providing favorable interest rates to purchasers of a certain income level, tax cuts (at least for a certain period) for registration tax, acquisition tax, and property tax, mitigation of DTI and LTV control, that is, means to boost up the affordability of the houses by the demand, could be said to be essential.