PPP, Reform Party join forces on Greater Seoul housing: 'We must respect those willing to take on debt'

The People Power Party and the Reform Party have joined forces on Greater Seoul housing policy, with Lee Jun-seok making his first official move since stepping down as Reform Party leader last month by co-launching a cross-party policy forum with the PPP. The initiative signals opposition policy coordination, as the two parties aim to develop alternatives covering housing supply, lending, taxation and urban renewal to win over voters in the greater metropolitan area amid growing public criticism of the government's real estate policies.

Lawmakers from both parties gathered Wednesday at the National Assembly Members' Office Building to launch the Metropolitan Area Housing Innovation Forum, a legislative research group, and hold its inaugural general meeting. Lee and People Power Party lawmaker Cho Jung-hoon were named co-chairs.

PPP lawmaker Park Su-min will serve as lead research member. From the PPP, lawmakers Kwon Young-se, Yoo Eui-dong, Bae Jun-young, Cho Eun-hee, Kim So-hee, Kim Jae-seop, Seo Myeong-ok and Choi Su-jin joined, along with Reform Party lawmaker Lee Ju-young, among others. The group is anchored by opposition lawmakers whose constituencies lie in the greater metropolitan area.

The forum will focus on scrutinizing the Lee Jae Myung administration's real estate policies while developing opposition alternatives spanning housing supply, finance, taxation and urban renewal.

"I felt we needed to find answers to the real estate and housing problems that everyone living in the greater metropolitan area is grappling with," Cho said. "We will come up with appropriate solutions on supply, taxation, finance and transportation."

Lee, who stepped down as party leader last month, chose policy cooperation with the PPP as his first official act. He framed both parties as challengers rather than incumbents in the greater metropolitan area and put real estate policy forward as a shared agenda. "In the greater metropolitan area, the Reform Party and the PPP are challengers, not the establishment," he said. "If you stigmatize and drive out one side of the market, all that remains is a supply cliff."

He added that regulations blocking housing construction during the period when the Democratic Party controlled both the Seoul city government and the national government "defied common sense," and said the forum must "show a path that respects the choice of real buyers who are willing to take on debt to purchase a home."

The forum plans to examine in detail the effects and side effects of the government's real estate policies and conduct field visits. Key agenda items include the impact of lending and transaction regulations on genuine homebuyers, the feasibility of Greater Seoul housing supply measures, institutional barriers blocking reconstruction and redevelopment projects, and the jeonse and monthly rent market alongside real estate taxation.

The two parties intend to go beyond policy review and translate their joint work into legislation. Options under consideration include packaging housing supply expansion measures, financial and tax policies to restore a housing ladder for genuine buyers, and improvements to the urban renewal system to promote inner-city supply — all as a single policy bundle.

At Wednesday's inaugural meeting, architect Yoo Hyun-jun delivered the first presentation, titled "Greater Seoul Real Estate and Urban Issues and the Future of Housing." Rather than focusing narrowly on home prices and supply volumes, Yoo proposed that policymakers also consider what kinds of spaces housing should be built in and how. He argued that solutions must be grounded in a more fundamental perspective — rethinking the urban structure and residential spaces of the greater metropolitan area to match shifting demographics and lifestyles.