Over decades, in terms of quantitative and qualitative perspectives, Korean housing conditions have been continuously improved. Nonetheless, Korea has to resolve complicated sets of issues originated from a short supply of new housing and at the same time expanding underutilized and vacant housing volumes.
In order to accomplish policy objectives mainly given to housing stability of lower-income group, social housing in Korea has been directly supplied by public sectors including Korea Land and Housing Corporation (hereafter LH). In order to fulfill social needs geared towards social housing supply for the last half-century, social housing stock has been increased. Simultaneously, it has resulted in an inevitable expansion in numbers of vacant social housing. Even though empty housing occurs naturally in the meantime of housing search and moving-in procedures, overstock problems of empty housing exceeding certain level are faced with waste of construction resources and unequal housing support system. In addition, abnormal volumes of vacant social housing directly indicate inefficient management problems of public housing sector.
Considering these circumstances, this study tries to figure out the current state of affairs and major causes of vacant social housing and suggest a series of policy alternatives. In specific, firstly this study identifies status quo and conditions of social housing in Korea. The main data come from 932 complexes constructed by the LH, which has provided more than two-thirds of all Korean social housing. Secondly, from the comparative points of view between social housing complex which have occurred long-term vacancies units and the normal complex (i.e., without long-term vacancy), it analyzes major characteristics of the former type. Thirdly, it searches for decision factors and key influence factors which would contribute to numbers of long-term vacancy units in the LH-constructed social housing complex.
Concerned with the basic data, only 468 social housing complex, about 50.2% of the total 932, were confronted with long-term vacancies problems. Total long-term vacancies accounted for 1.2% of the total inventory (8,432 units). The average units of long-term vacancies in the LH-constructed social housing was 18. Ulsan city, Sejong city, and Busan city presented relatively high rate of long-term vacancy in social housing complex. Furthermore, the higher long-term vacancy rate was recorded in Ulsan-city, Sejong-city, Gyeongsangbuk-do, and Jeonrabuk-do, respectively. From the aerial point of view, the long-term vacancy rate was more common in the smaller units of 26㎡ or less.
In this study, the long-term vacancy ratio presented significant variations, depending on population, household changes, and the level of housing and public rental housing supply. This study also confirmed that the long-term vacancy is directly related with problems of administrative procedures and preference, in addition to physical factors including building equipment, area, number of floors, building direction, usage fee, and location. Examining decision and influence factors producing abnormal vacant units in the social housing complex, it applied the logit and Multiple Regression models.
The findings are as follows: decision factors exerting significant impact on the complex which have occurred abnormal vacant units in the social housing complex include population increase rate, housing penetration rate, apartment Jeon-se price fluctuation rate, rent level. In the similar contexts, a series of factors affecting the rate of abnormal long-term vacancy in social housing complex are population increase rate, housing penetration rate, supply weight of social housing, rent level, and weight of small-size units. These results imply that abnormal vacant social housing units usually come from mismatch between social housing demand and supply. It also reflects individual household’s rent burden or housing preference.
Based on these findings, this study recommends that the public sector should prepare both systematic supply plans and contingency plans promptly responding to ever-changing housing demand, ahead of social housing supply. For these purposes, after establishing cooperative policy guidelines centered on the appropriate management plans of social housing, the study suggests that the public sectors should take the appropriate action on the vacant social housing issues.