Lee delivers warning against multi-homeowners who seek luxury homes as investment

▲ President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a meeting with his senior secretaries at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Jan. 29, 2026. (Yonhap)

Lee-housing prices

Lee delivers warning against multi-homeowners who seek luxury homes as investment

By Yi Wonju

SEOUL, Feb. 5 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday delivered another warning against owners of multiple homes who are seeking to buy luxury homes, with the government set to end tax breaks on them to stabilize the overheated property market in the Seoul metropolitan area.

The message is the latest in a series of his social media posts aimed at cooling home prices, as the government has pledged to end an exemption from heavy capital gains tax for owners of multiple homes in May.

Media reports say some owners of multiple homes may try to buy one luxury home after selling their other homes to avoid a heavy tax.

"Moving up to a higher-value property? Let me be clear, it will not be in your interest to do so unless it is for residential use," Lee wrote on X, sharing a news article highlighting rising demand for buyers to trade up into higher-tier neighborhoods ahead of the May 9 deadline.

In a separate post on X, Lee also commented on prosecutors' recent decision not to appeal the court's acquittal of key figures in a development corruption case in Seongnam's Wirye district.

Lee said the prosecutors had sought to implicate him in a case that has "no legal basis," claiming they misinterpreted an audio recording by casting certain expressions differently, such as interpreting a reference to the "Wirye New Town" as "the elders," which sound similar in Korean, to point to Lee and a former Democratic Party official.

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