Housing is a place to live, not an asset for speculation

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Housing is a place to live, not an asset for speculation

Published: 23 Feb. 2026, 00:03

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Park Moon-soo

The author is the chairman of Future & Values and the director of the Korea Peace-making foundation.

Housing, at its core, is not a financial instrument but a place where people live. Yet Korea’s housing market, shaped by chronic supply shortages, has long been infused with speculative impulses. The result has been the normalization of residential insecurity. The gap between those who own homes and those who do not has widened, and “where one lives” has come to determine not only the quality of life but also access to education, jobs and future opportunities.

This reality weighs most heavily on the young. Amid soaring jeonse — Korea’s unique lump-sum deposit lease system — and monthly rents, and in an environment defined by instability, even moving out has become a difficult choice for many young adults. Marriage and childbirth have been pushed further down the list — often off it entirely. “I’m postponing marriage because I don’t own a home” is no longer an excuse; it is a commonplace confession. At a time when merely keeping up with housing costs feels overwhelming, the youth employment rate fell in January to its lowest level in five years. For many young people, starting a family has become not a matter of choice but of impossibility.

Housing insecurity does not merely strain individual lives; it erodes society’s future. As more couples abandon marriage and childbirth, low birthrates and demographic distortions deepen, with the burden passed on to the next generation. In a society that treats housing as a private asset issue, it is difficult to imagine a sustainable future. Residential instability is no longer a personal problem but a structural one. It is time to reset the starting point of housing policy.

Multi-unit housing buildings are seen from Namsan in central Seoul on Sept. 29, 2025. [YONHAP]

Above all, housing must not serve as a vehicle for speculation. Shelter is inseparable from the basic conditions of life and cannot be left solely to market logic. Yet for years we have allowed housing to function as a tool of asset accumulation, and the resulting wealth gap between homeowners and non-homeowners has metastasized into generational conflict. A policy framework centered on actual residence — not investment — must be firmly established. Across the board, policy should make clear that housing is the foundation of stable living, not a means of financial gain.

The method of supply also demands a fundamental shift. Quantity alone does not solve the problem. The critical question is where homes are built. Supply must be concentrated in areas where genuine demand exists — places dense with jobs, transportation links, schools and daily-life infrastructure. Instead, we have too often racked up supply figures in peripheral districts with relatively weak demand, producing a dual failure: unsold units and vacancies on the one hand, and rising prices in urban cores on the other. A supply policy that ignores demand cannot stabilize the market.

Sales notices are put up at a real estate agency in Mapo District, western Seoul, on Nov. 5, 2025.[NEWS1]

The most significant driver of urban housing shortages lies in excessive regulations and inefficient approval processes surrounding redevelopment and reconstruction. In a reality where projects can take years — sometimes more than a decade — to advance, supply inevitably contracts. Safety and public interest matter, but they must not become pretexts for indefinite delay. When uncertainty and administrative lag become the greatest risks in housing supply, structural reform is imperative. Approval procedures should be clear and streamlined; decision-making should be swift. A bold institutional overhaul is needed.

At the same time, the government must send clear signals to the market. Without predictability about when, where and how much housing will be supplied, anxiety among buyers will only intensify. Developable land should be designated in advance, and presales used to present concrete supply volumes. When medium- and long-term supply plans are transparently disclosed, the market can shed excessive expectations and fears, responding with greater stability. Regulation alone, in the absence of trust in supply, has obvious limits.

A bird's eye view of apartments in Nowon District, northern Seoul, on Jan. 29. [NEWS1]

Housing will not be fixed overnight. But markets respond to clear direction. The repeated failures of past housing policies have stemmed not from a lack of speed, but from the absence of consistent principles and a coherent vision. We must move beyond the passive accumulation of regulations and piecemeal prescriptions, and toward structural solutions focused squarely on residential stability.

A society in which housing is once again a place to live — not an asset to trade. A society where policy is measured not by the rise and fall of home prices, but by the stability of people’s lives. That is why housing policy must be revisited now, and why the goal we must ultimately reach is.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.