A world where devils and saints coexist with many more ordinary people

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A world where devils and saints coexist with many more ordinary people

Published: 05 Feb. 2026, 00:01

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Yeh Young-june

The author is the head of the editorial board at the JoongAng Ilbo.

To avoid misunderstanding, let me state this upfront. I own a single home and have held it for a long time. I have neither the means nor the inclination to buy additional property. I simply hope housing prices will be stabilized quickly so the market can settle. I have no desire to see government real estate policy fail. I am not someone who has sold his soul to evil spirits.

An official at a real estate brokerage in Seocho District, Seoul, watches President Lee Jae Myung’s New Year press conference on Jan. 21, focusing on remarks related to the housing market. [YONHAP]

President Lee Jae Myung has been issuing resolute messages on social media day after day. Having delivered the long-doubted Kospi 5,000, his confidence suggests that reining in housing prices should be no harder. His tone recalls the urgency once voiced by former President Roh Moo-hyun, who said that even if real estate prices rose everywhere else in the world, they should not rise in Korea. Yet by now, Koreans have learned that determination and will alone cannot guarantee outcomes in housing.

The decision to end the grace period for heavier capital gains taxes on owners of multiple homes is one policy tool available to the government. In the short term, the aim is likely to induce listings and cool price momentum. At a deeper level, it reflects the Democratic Party’s long-held belief that unearned income, typified by real estate gains among multi-home owners, should be recaptured through higher taxation. Real estate cannot be moved to where demand arises. New supply lags behind demand, and land, unlike manufactured goods, is finite. When a housing minister under former President Moon Jae-in said that if apartments were bread, they would bake them overnight, the remark was not wrong in itself. Regulating those who own more land or housing than others and asking them to pay relatively higher taxes within reasonable bounds is not inherently problematic.

President Lee Jae Myung listens to remarks by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol, at right, on the end of the grace period for heavier capital gains taxes on owners of multiple homes during the fourth Cabinet meeting at the main building of Cheong Wa Dae on Feb. 3. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

What is harder to accept is a view that casts all multi-home owners as devils who squeeze tears from the eyes of young people without homes. Some may indeed exploit policy loopholes and deploy financial engineering to hoard apartments and distort markets. But far more people own more than one home for reasons society can tolerate. If they rent to those without homes at reasonable rates and faithfully pay the taxes due, they serve a social function by helping sustain the housing ladder. That is the double face of multi-home ownership.

After the president described the current window as a “last chance to escape,” critics asked what that made presidential aides. Just as not all multi-home owners are devils, aides cannot be branded as such merely for owning more than one home. Unless they are predatory speculators, there is little reason to single them out. If they truly were devils, it would mean the president appointed them without proper scrutiny. If they were indeed unscrupulous, they should not remain aides even if they sell property before May 9. One does not keep devils on staff simply because they repent. News that some aides sold homes at the crossroads between “house” and “office” therefore carries a bittersweet irony. Korea has seen such scenes before under the previous administration and remembers how little they achieved. One aide reportedly sold a home in Yongin while keeping one in Gangnam. Most multi-home owners would make the same choice. The impact on Gangnam prices would be negligible, while the gap between Gangnam and other areas could widen further.

Attention is focusing on whether some owners of multiple homes will rush to list properties in regulated areas, including Seoul, to avoid heavier capital gains taxes after President Lee Jae Myung said at his New Year press conference that he was “not considering at all” an extension of the grace period for the higher tax rates. The photo shows apartment complexes densely packed across the city, seen from the Namsan Observatory in Seoul on Jan. 25. [YONHAP]

Viewing the world through a rigid moral binary may work in religion or ethics, but it fits poorly as a lens for politics or economics. Few policy arenas entangle interests and ideology as tightly as real estate. Policymakers may insist that apartments are homes, not money. In reality, they are both shelters and objects of desire, assets whose prices fluctuate and are therefore inevitable targets of investment. This is not unique to Korea but a global phenomenon. Only by acknowledging this reality can sound policy emerge.

Adam Smith captured the point succinctly in "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). We do not expect dinner from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, he wrote, but from their regard for their own interest. The world turns not on the goodwill of saints but on individuals pursuing what benefits them. That does not make ordinary people devils. The same applies to desires tied to real estate. Society is made up of a few villains, more saints and far more ordinary people living together.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.