Why housing is becoming a major political headache for South Korea's Lee Jae-myung

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung's approval rating has fallen to a new low, with housing policy emerging as one of the central issues driving public dissatisfaction as he enters the second year of his five-year term.

A Realmeter survey published on Monday found that 63.3% of respondents disapproved of Lee's performance, while only 33.8% approved, according to a Times of India report.

A steady decline through the summer


The latest reading extends a decline that has played out across multiple pollsters over recent weeks. A separate Gallup Korea poll released on September 11 had already put Lee's approval below 40% for the first time since he took office in June 2025, with housing policy cited as the single biggest reason for disapproval, ahead of personnel appointments and concerns over the economy.

Realmeter attributed the fall to dissatisfaction with housing policy as well as recent cabinet appointments, including the withdrawal of a nominee for gender equality minister and accusations of ethics violations involving the pick for justice minister.

Property curbs have not eased the pressure

Lee has tried to rein in property speculation through tougher measures targeting owners of multiple homes and expensive properties, along with tighter borrowing restrictions on leveraged purchases. Critics say the measures have instead left many prospective buyers feeling locked out of an already expensive urban housing market, particularly in Seoul.

The Yongsan land dispute

The housing debate has increasingly centred on the future of land in Seoul's Yongsan district, a roughly 3-million-square-metre site returned in stages by the US military after decades of use as first a Japanese colonial-era base and then an American garrison.

Around 2,800 acres of land there are being freed up for potential development, including about 740 acres earmarked as parkland, an area slightly smaller than New York's Central Park. Under a 2007 law, the entire site had originally been committed to becoming a national park, and Lee himself pledged during his campaign to build a "Central Park for Korea" there.

But as pressure has grown to expand Seoul's housing supply, the government has floated using parts of the site, including former officers' quarters and a defence agency building, for housing instead, a proposal Seoul's city government and local residents have opposed on the grounds that the returned land should remain protected green space.

Kim Si-deok, a commentator on urban development, said Lee had created a perception that he was listening more to those who want to preserve Seoul as a "boutique city" than to those who see it as a mass housing market.

A steeper fall than his record as governor

The decline marks a sharp reversal from Lee's record as mayor of Seongnam and later governor of Gyeonggi province, South Korea's most populous region. His approval rating there rose from 29% in 2018 to a peak of 72% two years later, before he left office with support at around 60%.

As president, Lee has faced a more complicated set of challenges, with housing emerging as a major source of public discontent in a pattern that also weighed on the presidency of former liberal leader Moon Jae-in.

Lee has stayed largely quiet on the numbers

Lee has not publicly commented on his falling approval rating. Early in his presidency, he had played down the importance of chasing a specific popularity target, saying, "There's no point talking about a goal for what kind of support I'd like to get. I'm going to do my best with the expectation that it'll be higher when I finish."

The decline has nonetheless raised concern within the ruling Democratic Party over whether Lee can turn his numbers around before a parliamentary election due in two years, a contest that could hinge on the party's ability to retain its majority.

Kim Eo-joon, a prominent liberal commentator and early supporter of Lee, warned last month that recovering from an approval rating in the 30s has historically been difficult. "Once you hit 3 (in the first digit) in support rating, no president has recovered from that," he said on his YouTube show.

Blue House promises direct outreach

Lee's office, the presidential Blue House, has said he plans to address the public directly, though the format is still being worked out. Spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said at a Friday briefing that the government viewed the decline as the result of several compounding policy and political issues rather than any single factor.

"We look at this as a compound result of various policy issues such as real estate and the stock market as well as political issues," Kang said, according to TOI. "We're listening to the voices of the public with a heavy sense of responsibility."

Notably, Lee's own office completed its move back to the Blue House, formally known as Cheong Wa Dae, in December 2025, ending a three-and-a-half-year stint at Yongsan that began under former president Yoon Suk-yeol, a relocation that has put the surrounding Yongsan district even more firmly in the political spotlight.

For Lee, housing remains a central and unresolved challenge as his administration tries to balance rising property prices, tighter borrowing rules and the demand for urban homes against pressure to protect what is left of central Seoul's green space.

(With inputs from TOI)