KJCKorea
Journal Central

During the Moon Jae-in administration, housing price regulations and the expansion of Jeonse loan guarantees were implemented simultaneously. However, the interaction between these two policy instruments has received limited empirical attention. This study examines whether the expansion of Jeonse loan guarantees structurally weakened the effectiveness of housing price regulations in Seoul’s apartment market. We analyze a strongly balanced monthly panel of Seoul’s 25 districts over 89 months, from January 2015 to May 2022, using an exposure-based, continuous-treatment difference-in-differences design combined with a shift-share (Bartik) identification strategy. Jeonse loan exposure, constructed by interacting nationwide guarantee balances with district-level shares of Jeonse households, is used as the moderating variable. The results show that the expansion of Jeonse loan guarantees significantly attenuated the price-dampening effect of housing price regulations. Conditional marginal-effects analysis further indicates that this attenuation was more pronounced in districts with higher shares of Jeonse households. Identification checks, including event-study analysis, pre-trend tests, and tests of the correlates of exposure shares, support the plausibility of the identification strategy. Robustness checks using alternative exposure shares, fixed-effects specifications, and sample periods also confirm the stability of the main findings. These findings suggest that the simultaneous implementation of price-suppressing regulations and liquidity-expanding Jeonse loan guarantees created a trade-off between policy instruments. They underscore the need for ex ante policy-consistency reviews, stronger cross-ministerial coordination, and systematic management of guarantee volumes.

This study analyzes the structural changes in Seoul Metropolitan Area apartment market from 2016 to 2023, comparing periods before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, using a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The VECM results show that the number of cointegrating vectors rose from two to three after the pandemic, indicating a more complex long-term equilibrium with the emergence of an additional supply-response cointegrating pathway. Variance decomposition analysis shows that liquidity's influence on sales prices decreased by over 50% (6.82% → 3.05%), while the explanatory power of interest rates increased to 17.66%, maintaining its position as the most influential external factor in housing prices. These findings imply that an "interest rate-led price adjustment structure," in which prices react more strongly to interest rate shocks than to liquidity expansion, replaces the previous method of determining housing prices. Moreover, Jeonse prices (Korea’s unique lump-sum deposit lease system; 4.85%) and housing starts (3.52%) played larger roles in the model as supplementary factors. Therefore, while maintaining steady supply signals and monitoring rental market liquidity as an auxiliary stabilizer, future policies should prioritize the structural effects of interest rates on market sentiment.

This study examines the factors influencing hotel survival in Seoul during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on 187 business hotels (2- to 4-star). Due to strict personal data protection regulations in Korea, which restrict access to detailed operational indicators, this study uses the most recent available dataset from December 2018. This dataset is then linked to outcomes of hotel closures or conversions observed through July 2025. A Cox proportional hazards model analyzes how operational performance, building characteristics, and locational attributes affected hotel survival during an unprecedented external shock. The findings indicate that chain-affiliated hotels with on-site restaurants are significantly less likely to close or convert functions. Larger gross floor area, higher occupancy rates, and higher average daily rates improve survival probabilities. In contrast, hotels located in the historic Four Gates area faced a higher risk of land-use conversion than those elsewhere. This finding suggests that heightened redevelopment pressure in the urban core and external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic may have accelerated the functional transition of hotels within the Four Gates area. Moreover , greater distance from airport limousine bus stops led to lower hazard rates during the pandemic. These findings offer valuable insights into sustainable hotel operations, considerations of highest and best use, and redevelopment strategies for urban hotel assets in Seoul under external shocks, offering policy and investment insights for post-pandemic real estate markets.