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Song Eon-seok, floor leader of the opposition People Power Party, speaks during a supreme council meeting at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, on October 16. / Source: Yonhap News

Song Eon-seok, floor leader of the opposition People Power Party (PPP), on Wednesday proposed forming a “four-way real estate consultative body” that would include the ruling Democratic Party, the PPP, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and the Seoul Metropolitan Government to tackle Seoul’s housing supply challenges.

Speaking at a party leadership meeting at the National Assembly, Song said, “Let’s put our heads together to find a fundamental solution to Seoul’s housing supply problem.”

He criticized the government’s newly announced October 15 real estate measures, calling them “a reopening of the vicious cycle of policy failures from the past 20 years of leftist administrations — from the Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in governments to the current Lee Jae-myung administration.”

“President Roh once declared that he would ‘tame real estate prices even if the sky fell apart,’ yet during his five-year term, Seoul apartment prices soared 57%,” Song said. “President Moon also vowed to roll out stronger and stronger measures, but the result was another housing price explosion.”

He warned that anti-market policies focused solely on suppressing demand “will fail to control prices and only crush the dreams of working-class and young Koreans who wish to own a home.”

“Real estate policy must prioritize genuine end-users and single-home owners,” Song stressed, adding, “Unfortunately, left-leaning governments have consistently failed to grasp this point.”

He called for swift measures to expand housing supply, including easing restrictions on redevelopment and reconstruction projects and adjusting floor-area and building-coverage ratios.

“For housing policies that expand supply for low-income and first-time buyers, there can be no ruling or opposition divide,” Song said. “Let’s begin bipartisan cooperation on real estate by listening not to ideology, but to reality and the voices of the market.”