[News Now] "Entertainment" Stepping Stone Loan...Ordinary people are confused.

■ Proceedings: Anchor Jung Ji-woong
■ Phone: Seok Byung-hoon, professor of economics at Ewha Womans University

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN NewsNOW] when quoting.

[Anchor]
This is an issue call to ask experts about hot issues. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG) delivered a request to the commercial bank on the 11th to limit the limit on stepping-stone loans, a policy loan for homeless people.When purchasing your first home in your life, the key content is to lower the mortgage loan ratio, LTV, from up to 80% to 70%, and to stop post-mortem mortgage loans for semi-construction apartments. The sudden policy implementation was strongly opposed by end-users.

Before the change in the loan standard, end-users who were pushing to purchase houses in consideration of the loanable amount protested strongly, saying that the loan could be reduced by tens of millions of won, and some prospective people who are about to move in after receiving new apartments were in a situation where they could not get loans at all. Eventually, the government stepped back. We decided to suspend the reduction of the stepping stone loan limit for now and come up with 'customized measures'. At the same time, it said it plans to announce concrete improvement measures, including the exclusion of the application of the non-metropolitan area. The policy confusion is confusing to the end users themselves. Let's hear more about Seok Byung-hoon, a professor of economics at Ewha Womans University. Professor, you're out, right?

[Seok Byung Hoon]
How are you?

[Anchor]
Government policy has been on and off for a few days. How did you like it?

[Seok Byung Hoon]
That's right. Buying the original house will be a very important decision for consumers because it is a large part of their assets. That's why we make a decision to purchase a house by carefully planning a financing plan. As the government suddenly announced that it would strengthen loan regulations, consumers who decided to buy houses by selling or selling them were greatly embarrassed and forced to protest. So, given the government's pushback and suspension of regulations, it is doubtful whether there was a control tower to closely coordinate policies among ministries or whether it played a role properly.

[Anchor]
The government is trying to revise the representative low-income loan policy. What's the background?

[Seok Byung Hoon]
The background is that household loan growth has decreased recently. Therefore, household loans in the banking sector increased by 5.2 trillion won last month, halving the increase of 9.7 trillion won in August. This actually provided a justification for the Bank of Korea to cut its benchmark interest rate. On the other hand, it's a stepping stone, a support loan. Policy loans increased by 3.9 trillion won in August compared to the previous month, but still increased by 3.8 trillion won in September. That's why the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport seems to have suddenly stepped up to tighten this policy loan because the growth rate of this policy loan is still unabated.

However, I think the reason why the increase in policy loans does not decline is that there is still an expectation of rising housing prices and a demand to buy a house by taking out loans. The basis for this is that the Bank of Korea's monthly housing price outlook CSI also announced it in October. This came out as 116. When this is greater than 100, it means that there are more households that expect housing prices to rise more than they do in a year. Therefore, expectations for a rise in housing prices remain. Next, there are leading indicators in Seoul that the supply of new housing will drop sharply in the next three to four years.

A representative example is the performance of housing construction licensing. Last year's licensing performance was only half of the 10-year average. Then, this is an example of the government's sense of crisis, such as financial authorities and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, that there is still demand for home purchases as the number of new homes in Seoul is likely to drop sharply in the next three to four years, raising jeonse and sales prices.

[Anchor]
I think we can analyze that you are predicting an increase in housing prices. Some even point out that the government is driving homeless ordinary people to high-interest loans. How do you see it?

[Seok Byung Hoon]
You can think of it from the perspective of the homeless people. I understand that. Because in the case of stepping-stone loans that were intended to be regulated this time, it was a policy financial product that allows homeless people with an annual income of less than 60 million won and relatively low income to receive loans at low interest rates of 2 to 3% per year when buying a house with an annual income of less than 500 million won.

But by reducing the loan limit, in the end, ordinary people who want to buy their own homes are forced to pay higher loan rates and get general loans. That's why complaints are bound to be raised. As I said earlier, regulations on policy loans were inevitable from the financial authorities' point of view to bring down the ratio of household debt to GDP by setting household loan growth lower than nominal GDP growth this year. Therefore, it is necessary to properly coordinate these two policy goals, whether it is important to stabilize housing for the common people or to curb the increase in household debt. This is how I look at it.

[Anchor]
Don't real estate-related loan policies like this originally have a grace period or something? I think this was also pointed out this time.

[Seok Byung Hoon]
This is actually the most painful part. These loan regulations have a huge impact on end-users, so the transition of the low-income loan policy in particular should be given a grace period to give the end-users enough time to prepare. I think this should be criticized because the government hastily announced the policy this time, saying that it will postpone it again because end users strongly oppose it. From now on, we'll give you enough grace period, so you'll miss itI think it's necessary to make sure that people don't suffer.

[Anchor]
Finally, he said he would come up with customized measures soon, but the confusion at the site seems to continue. How should we plan our funds?

[Seok Byung Hoon]
It's a very difficult question. Prospects are flowing out through media reports on the customized measures that the government will come up with now. A typical example is that in the non-metropolitan area, the real estate market is stagnating, so there is a policy not to reduce stepping stone loans. Then, we will not take any measures to reduce the amount of loans that have already been applied for stepping stones. In the case of the metropolitan area, it is predicted that it will be implemented with a grace period even in that case because it is inevitable to reduce the loan limit.

So, it is judged that those who want to buy a house in the non-metropolitan area are relatively relaxed. Those who want to buy in the metropolitan area are implying that it is important to apply first. So this is inevitably similar to an open run, and the demand to apply for stepping-stone loans is bound to be concentrated. I have no choice but to tell you that this is a sad situation.

[Anchor]
It seems that the concerns of the common people are deepening amid the back-and-forth loan policy. I was with Seok Byung-hoon, an economics professor at Ewha Womans University. Thank you, professor.

[Seok Byung Hoon]
Thank you.