House prices in South Korea fell 1.98% in December from month earlier, the fastest drop since data releases began in the late 2003 and the seventh consecutive month decline data from the Korea Real Estate Board showed.
That follows a 1.37% loss in November and marked a 4.68% decline for the year 2022 turning around from a 9.93% gain 2021, the board said in a statement. House price were falling sharply around the world as central banks have quickly raised interest rates to fight inflation, cooling the economy and pushing up mortgage rates.
For the last seven losing months house prices across the country dropped by a cumulative 4.89% also setting the steepest drop for any seven -month period record, the data showed. The government of President Yoon Suk-Yeol who took office in May last year has announced measures aimed at lowering taxes and easing other restrictions largely unwinding the steps taken by the predecessor.
Conservative Yoon has said that house prices had some room to ease after a runway rally in recent years but that any downward adjustment should be made in an orderly manner and without hurting stability in the financial sector.
House prices in south Korea had risen every month for nearly three years until May 2022 which analysts have blamed on a combination of the loose monetary policy, a poor supply of new homes and a policy failure.
