FSS to expand dedicated PF project staff fivefold to accelerate Greater Seoul housing supply

The Financial Supervisory Service will expand its dedicated staff overseeing residential project financing sites in the Greater Seoul area from five to 25 — a fivefold increase. Each priority site will be assigned one FSS contact and one lender contact, with financing, guarantees and permits coordinated according to the project's progress.

The FSS held a meeting with financial industry representatives Thursday to share the close-monitoring plan for residential PF sites, framed around accelerating housing supply.

FSS Governor Lee Chan-jin had directed senior officials at a management meeting Wednesday to concentrate financial support on ensuring early housing supply in Seoul and the Greater Seoul area, and to place special oversight on projects scheduled for delivery by 2027 to prevent delays.

As part of that effort, the FSS will form a 25-member Housing Supply Promotion Financial Support Team. The real estate PF assessment and management unit will take overall charge of the work previously handled by five staff, and the cooperative framework will be extended to include the inspection bureaus overseeing lead lenders. Financial institutions will also be required to designate a site-level contact, bringing the total to two dedicated managers per priority site — one from the FSS and one from the lender. Lenders will monitor each site for difficulties and report any warning signs to the FSS immediately.

The FSS will also conduct a full audit of the causes of delay at each site. It plans to classify sites into four categories based on progress: on track, supply acceleration needed, normalization support needed, and sale-induced resolution. Sites where delays stem from temporary issues will be designated for supply acceleration, while those showing signs of distress will be placed under normalization support. Sites with no viable path to recovery other than a sale will be steered toward resuming the project through divestiture.

Support tools will also be tailored to each site's circumstances. Sites requiring financing will be connected to syndicated loans, PF development anchor real estate investment trusts and the Korea Asset Management Corporation fund, while those needing PF guarantees will be referred to the Korea Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation and the Korea Housing Finance Corporation. Sites with demand for public rental housing purchases will be linked to the Korea Land and Housing Corporation, and those facing non-financial hurdles such as permits will be handled through consultations with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and other related ministries. Even sites already progressing normally will be eligible for additional support if it can bring forward their ground-breaking or completion dates.

The close-monitoring program covers 325 residential PF sites in Greater Seoul's regulated zones where ground-breaking or completion is expected by 2027, representing about 180,000 units. These were selected from a total of 601 sites — 502 in Greater Seoul's regulated zones where financial institutions participate as lead lenders, and 99 held by financial institutions' proprietary funds — accounting for about 330,000 units in all. The figure of 325 sites is a preliminary count as of late last month and may change following the full audit.