Korea Real Estate Board steps up tailored consulting to accelerate housing supply

The Korea Real Estate Board said Wednesday it will strengthen tailored, stage-by-stage consulting and on-site support for urban redevelopment projects to back the government's push for faster housing supply.

The board plans to expand its public support functions so that difficulties arising at redevelopment sites can be resolved proactively and projects can move through to actual ground-breaking and housing delivery.

The tailored consulting the board provides has drawn positive feedback from redevelopment associations that have used the service, establishing it as a leading example of the necessity and effectiveness of public support.

The reconstruction association of Mokdong Complex 4 in Seoul recently requested the board's association-management consulting to improve transparency and professionalism in its operations. Following consulting sessions held this month, the association said it was able to review its overall management from an objective, expert perspective and identify specific areas requiring improvement.

The reconstruction association of Daechi KGM Complex 1 in Seoul received pre-bid consulting during the contractor selection process, then followed that with initial contract consulting provided in April after the contractor was chosen.

Going forward, the board said it will move beyond individual consulting engagements to build a closer on-site support system that proactively identifies causes of project delays and proposes solutions. It will also expand support for the construction cost negotiations, management and disposal plan, and relocation, demolition and ground-breaking stages — the most common bottlenecks in the latter half of redevelopment projects.

At each of those stages, the board will review project timelines and obstacles on a site-by-site basis to minimize difficulties in the field. The board's ultimate goal is to establish a field-centered public support system built around a continuous cycle: early detection of delay factors, tailored solutions, project normalization and swift ground-breaking.

"To achieve rapid housing supply, it is just as important to ensure that projects already under way proceed to ground-breaking without delay as it is to identify new redevelopment zones," Korea Real Estate Board President Lee Heon-uk said. "Drawing on the expertise and field experience we have accumulated in redevelopment projects, we will proactively identify bottlenecks at each project stage and deliver practical solutions that associations and local governments can actually feel."

Meanwhile, the board operates a new redevelopment project consulting program for private redevelopment projects under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's plan to achieve residential stability for the public.