The Korea Housing Finance Corporation (HF) co-hosted the 2026 International Housing Finance Conference with the Japan Housing Finance Agency (JHF) at Bankers’ Hall in Myeong-dong, Seoul on Sept. 4.
The JHF operates securitization businesses to support long-term, fixed-rate mortgages and manages reverse mortgage products.
Held under the theme of “Demographic Shifts and the Future of Housing Finance,” the conference served as a forum for active discussion among housing finance experts from Korea, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines among other Asian nations.
“I hope this conference serves as a meaningful opportunity to collectively explore wisdom and solutions across Asian countries for addressing demographic changes,” HF President Kim Kyung-hwan said in his opening remarks.
“We will strengthen an inclusive and sustainable housing finance system that encompasses all generations and regions, ensuring that no specific generation or area will be marginalized during this process of demographic transition.”
“We must focus on stabilizing housing and financial markets and providing housing finance tailored to life stages in step with the changing environment,” said Jeon Yo-seop, director general of the Financial Policy Bureau at the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in his congratulatory address.
“We need to channel limited financial resources to where they are most needed and expand the scope of housing finance to housing stability throughout one’s entire life.”
In the first presentation titled “Impact of Demographic Shifts on the Real Estate Market and Future Challenges,” Park Jin-baek, a research fellow at the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements (KRIHS), analyzed how changes in household structures and macroeconomic conditions driven by population decline and aging affect the real estate market.
“Multifaceted support is required to expand long-term public rental housing for young people and to facilitate the conversion of housing assets into liquid funds for the elderly,” Park said.
Bang Song-hee, a senior research fellow at the Korea Housing Finance Corporation, said in her presentation titled “The Role of Housing Finance and Policy Tasks in Addressing Housing Risks Across the Life Cycle” that the role of housing finance are to establish a stable housing foundation by providing timely support for housing-related risks at each stage of life.
Finally, Tadayori Nakao, director of the Housing Bureau at Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism made a presentation on “Japan’s housing policies and housing finance,” sharing insights from Japan, a country that entered an aging society earlier than Korea.
Strengthening Public Guarantees for PF
On Aug. 31, HF laid out a plan to temporarily increase guarantee ratios and relax regulations on developer guarantees.
These measures aim to facilitate the smooth supply of funds to real estate project financing sites and boost overall housing supply in Korea.
These improvements to the system are follow-up measures to the Korean government’s “Comprehensive Financial Measures for Real Estate Market Stabilization,” announced on Aug. 13.
Key measures include temporarily increasing the guarantee coverage ratio for residential projects (from 90%–95% to 100%); relaxing regulations for mixed-use projects containing high-priced housing (exceeding 1.2 billion won) and quasi dwelling such as studio apartments and expanding the scope of guarantee fee reductions (from 30% to 40%) and extending the reduction period from April 2027 to the end of 2027.
These improvements will apply to new guarantee applications submitted starting from Aug. 31.
First, HF will increase the guarantee coverage ratio for project financing guarantees, construction cost plus PF guarantees and construction fund guarantees from the partial coverage method (90% to 95%) to the full coverage one (100%) through the end of 2027.
This initiative aims to facilitate the supply of funds from financial institutions to construction sites and improve financing conditions for developers.
In addition, HF will soften guarantee support criteria for projects that include high-priced houses exceeding 1.2 billion won.
Recognizing that land acquisition costs and other project expenses are essential for housing supply, HF will provide full guarantees for these costs without making deductions based on the proportion of high-priced housing in a project.
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