South Korean President Lee Jae Myung pressed housing agencies on Oct. 20 to get homes ready for occupancy sooner as the government seeks to address a supply gap he linked to weaker permits.
Lee visited the Incheon Gyeyang public housing district, inspected construction and met prospective residents and experts, the presidential office said. The government has scheduled the first move-ins there by the end of 2026: 1,285 homes in two blocks, including 747 for public sale and 538 in a newlywed housing program.
Lee asked agencies to examine whether selling land ahead of site preparation would shorten project timelines. He urged them to track delivery through occupancy. Yonhap News Agency reported that he also sought to begin construction on about 90% of planned public housing in South Korea's third-generation new towns by 2030. That percentage refers to construction starts, not completed homes.
Lee linked the supply gap to a decline in permits from 2022 through 2025, the presidential office said. The government's Aug. 13 housing package proposed more than 230,000 additional homes for the Seoul metropolitan area. By the second week of October 2026, construction had begun on more than 99,000 homes in the region, including 7,300 in third-generation new towns, the government said. Those starts do not establish when the homes will be ready to occupy.
Recent data point to a partial rebound in Seoul. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) said permits reached 36,000 from March through August 2026, up 74% from a year earlier. Starts rose 45% to 17,000 but remained below the 31,000 average for the same months from 2016 through 2025.
Prospective Gyeyang residents raised the need for better bus connections to Seoul. Transport experts at the visit said the gap between move-ins and the completion of transport infrastructure should be kept as short as possible, the presidential office said.
The government plans to publish housing supply updates twice a month.
