Panelist who called all real estate '100% speculation' fires back at critics on social media

A panelist who drew widespread attention at Thursday's national public forum on real estate policy, presided over by President Lee Jae-myung, for declaring that "real estate is 100% speculation — even owner-occupied housing," has taken the debate to social media.

The panelist is Cho Jeong-heun, chair of the land and housing committee at the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ).

In a Facebook post Friday recapping his experience at the forum, Cho pushed back against suggestions that the event had been stacked with participants sympathetic to the government. "Some people are saying they handpicked attendees whose views aligned with this administration's policy direction, but from where I stood, that wasn't the case at all," he wrote. "There was no script prepared in advance, no predetermined speaking order — it was a genuinely random, free-for-all debate."

Defending his remark that all real estate purchases are driven by speculative psychology, Cho said: "As I always say, whether you buy real estate or don't buy it, whether you choose what to buy, whether you hold on to what you already own instead of selling, whether you buy an apartment instead of a multi-unit dwelling — all of it is rooted in speculative psychology." He added, "Could you really take on that much debt, accept all that uncertainty and risk, and pull in your future expected income — without expecting prices to rise?"

He said the remark was not meant to condemn speculation as such, but to make a different point. "I said it not to emphasize that real estate is speculation, but to say that government policy — with its focus on one household, one home and genuine end-user demand — is itself nudging people into speculative behavior," he wrote. "What I really wanted to say was that policy should be designed so that no matter what real estate you buy, when you buy it, or whether you own or rent, you don't end up making or losing a fortune because of that choice."

Cho said he had also wanted to address the deterioration of housing markets that serve ordinary working people and young adults. "I wanted to talk about why the market for low-rise residential areas, multi-unit dwellings, officetels and urban-type housing — the real housing of ordinary working people and youth — has collapsed," he wrote. "It was heartbreaking that this entire market has been destroyed by the framing of 'multi-home owners and speculators,' and that the only solution being discussed for working-class neighborhoods is the redevelopment and reconstruction model that sweeps everything away in pursuit of apartments."

On his forum proposal to expand the supply of land-lease housing, Cho said the model involves selling buildings at 30 percent of market price while the public retains ownership of the land and recoups value through land lease fees. "Property holding taxes are essentially a fee for using public infrastructure," he said. "A land lease fee is a property holding tax. A property holding tax is not a levy on unrealized gains."

Cho also challenged the conventional view that housing supply is insufficient. "Everyone says supply is short, but I actually think the opposite," he said. "If demand were strong, why would supply not follow? The truth is that demand is weak. Prices are too high and people simply don't have the money to buy."

He argued that policies such as easing floor-area ratios for reconstruction and redevelopment projects, relaxing public-contribution and rental housing requirements, and providing relocation loans all amount to demand-side support. "There is a limit to how much you can prop up buyers who don't have the money in a high-cost structure," he said. "Pre-sale prices for general buyers keep having to be pushed up, and the whole cycle seizes up — like arterial sclerosis, completely blocked."

Cho said the real estate problem has accumulated over such a long period that there is no single fix. "There is no silver bullet," he said. "All you can do is set your principles and direction, then change things little by little, step by step, over a very long time."