This Government Buys Loads of Hotels and Offices – and Turns Them into Affordable Housing

With South Korea facing a significant shortage of affordable rental homes, officials are stepping up to make a change: over the next couple of years, the government plans to buy 114,000 properties, such as hotels and offices, and convert them into public housing on lease.

“Policies this time are focusing on fast increasing homes that could be rented out, not restricting demand, to meet demand for Jeonse properties,” says Hong Nam-ki, South Korea’s finance minister. Jeonse is a returnable one-off payment that substitutes a monthly rent for leasing a residential home for two to four years.

This is but one of the 23 measures implanted by South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s administration since 2017 to curb the drastic increases in housing prices and to protect residents.