Questioning the Reliability of Korea's Housing Price Statistics
Park Si-dong raised concerns about the credibility of Korea's official housing statistics, citing the Korea Real Estate Board's weekly apartment price index. While Seoul and Gangnam district apartment prices showed a sharp recent rise, fewer than 40 apartment transactions were actually recorded in Gangnam through June. He noted the index is still published weekly because the methodology substitutes seller asking prices for actual transaction data when trades are scarce.
Since sellers rarely lower their asking prices, this approach is structurally biased toward showing price increases, he argued. This official index is then cited by media outlets reporting on soaring prices, amplifying market anxiety and even influencing policy decisions despite resting on largely unverified asking prices.
He highlighted a recent press briefing in which the newly appointed head of the Korea Real Estate Board responded to questions about the asking-price-based methodology by suggesting that calling it 'asking prices' might hurt surveyors' feelings. Park called this response an inappropriate deflection for a public agency chief and argued such complacency undermines the government's broader real estate reform push.
As remedies, he proposed halting the weekly index when it relies on asking prices in place of actual transactions, and substantially expanding investment in real estate research capacity to build genuinely reliable statistics. He contrasted this with the U.S. and U.K., where official statistics reflect only bank-verified mortgage prices or attorney-confirmed transaction prices rather than unverified asking prices.