SEOUL — Four individuals who illicitly secured highly coveted apartment subscriptions in Gyeonggi Province's Dongtan 2 New Town through fraudulent residency registrations and administrative trickery have been referred to the prosecution, officials confirmed.
The Real Estate Irregularities Response Council, convened under the Prime Minister's Office’s Real Estate Market Monitoring Task Force, held its 17th inter-agency coordination meeting at the Seoul Government Complex. The session brought together representatives from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the National Police Agency, the National Tax Service, and the Gyeonggi Provincial Government to review ongoing crackdowns on real estate market disturbances.
During the meeting, the Gyeonggi Provincial Government reported that it had conducted a rigorous investigation into 58 individuals suspected of manipulating the local housing subscription system for a newly constructed apartment complex in Dongtan 2 New Town. Gyeonggi authorities referred four prime suspects to the prosecution on charges of violating the Housing Act, while three other individuals remain under active criminal investigation.
Exploiting the System: Case Profiles
The methods employed by the suspects underscore the lengths to which speculators will go to bypass regional residency restrictions and competitive lottery rules:
Suspect A (Fake Residency): Found to be living with his family in corporate housing provided by his employer in rural Boseong County, Jeollanam-do. To qualify for the highly competitive local resident quota in Gyeonggi Province, Suspect A fabricated his legal address, registering his residency at an unoccupied property in Gyeonggi Province while continuing to live in the southern region.
Suspect B (Special Quota Abuse): Exploited the "Special Quota for Supporting Elderly Parents," which allocates a portion of newly built apartments to households continuously supporting a parent aged 65 or older. Suspect B falsely registered his elderly mother—who actually lived in Busan—at his Gyeonggi address to artificially inflate his subscription points.
Deep-Dive: Why Dongtan 2 is the Ultimate "Lotto Subscription"
Under South Korea’s unique housing subscription system, Cheong-yak (청약), apartments are allocated using a points-based lottery. Because the government imposes a Price Cap System on Public Housing (Bunyang-ga Sanghan-je), new developments in prime locations like Dongtan 2 New Town—a tech hub home to Samsung's semiconductor facilities and connected to Seoul via the GTX-A high-speed train—are priced 30% to 50% below market value. Winning a subscription is widely called a "Lotto Ticket," guaranteeing instant paper gains of 300 million to 600 million KRW. This immense financial spread drives speculators to falsify addresses (known as wijang-jeonip).
Unmasking "Price-Puffing" (집값 띄우기) Tactics
The National Police Agency also shared a case of market manipulation. Suspect C reported selling his Seoul apartment to his own corporation for 1.65 billion KRW (up from its 1.51 billion KRW market price). No funds or deeds were actually transferred. After letting this high fake price sit on the public registry for nine months to inflate the neighborhood's price index, Suspect C quietly cancelled the corporate contract and sold the apartment to an unsuspecting third-party buyer for a whopping 1.80 billion KRW.
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