People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun challenged President Lee Jae-myung on Wednesday, asking whether abolishing the jeonse system would actually solve the housing crisis facing young people. "Eliminating jeonse must not become the goal," he said.
In a Facebook post, Yoon said jeonse — a uniquely Korean deposit-based rental arrangement — was indeed a distinctly Korean system, but argued that being distinctive and needing to disappear were two different things.
President Lee had said at a press conference marking his first year in office that jeonse was "a system that will disappear in the course of normalization."
In response, Yoon said the reality people feel on the ground is not the disappearance of jeonse but a shortage of it. "Jeonse has long served as a housing ladder for young people, newlyweds and low-income renters without homes," he said. "Instead of draining income on wolse — monthly rent — it allowed people to save a lump sum and work toward homeownership, making stable housing possible."
He acknowledged the system's flaws. "The expansion of jeonse loans and deposit insurance fueled rising home prices and growing household debt, and large-scale jeonse fraud exposed structural vulnerabilities in the system," he said. He added that a long-term shift toward wolse and long-term rentals could be a natural evolution.
"But the problem is not the direction — it is the speed," Yoon said. "The government describes the decline of jeonse as a normalization process, but what people actually feel is a supply shortage."
He said jeonse listings in Seoul had been falling rapidly, while public and private long-term rental housing to replace them remained insufficient. "Jeonse is shrinking and wolse is rising, but the incomes of young people and low-income renters without homes are not keeping pace," he said.
Yoon added that demand for quality jeonse in Seoul remained strong. "When supply falls faster than demand, prices have no choice but to rise," he said. "Above all, the biggest problem young people face right now is not home prices — it is the burden of housing costs."
"Amid high wolse, loan interest and rising living costs, many young people are putting off marriage and having children," he said. "If jeonse disappears rapidly on top of all that, young people will in effect be pushed into the wolse market." He said wolse was more than a housing expense — it was a cost that ate into savings and asset-building opportunities for the future.
Yoon said the answer lay not in abruptly phasing out jeonse but in a gradual transition. He called for maintaining jeonse financing support for young people and newlyweds with genuine housing needs, reducing jeonse fraud risks, and ensuring adequate housing supply through reconstruction, redevelopment and the expansion of private long-term rentals.
"Eliminating jeonse must not become the goal. The aim of policy should be housing stability, not the end of jeonse," he said. "What people want is not a declaration to abolish jeonse, but a housing policy that lets young people plan their futures without worrying about wolse. That is true normalization."
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