On the 13th of this month, the Housing Bureau (IH) published the provisional ranking list and exclusion list for the 5,415 economic housing units of 2023. Out of 6,562 applications, 1,486 were excluded, accounting for one-fifth of the total, leaving more than 300 units unsold.
Recently, I received a complaint from a young applicant excluded from the provisional list because his monthly income was below the minimum threshold. When this young man submitted his application for economic housing, he already had a stable job, and his monthly salary met both the maximum and minimum income thresholds published by the Government on September 7, 2023. However, because he had only worked for a few months before applying, his average monthly income over the past 12 months was below the minimum threshold, leading to his exclusion.
In 2020, the Government amended the method for calculating the “monthly income limit” under Article 16(6) of the “Economic Housing Law.” The provision that stated, “the monthly income is the income earned during the month prior to the declaration or the average monthly income earned in the twelve months prior to the declaration, with the more favorable value being used for the applicant,” was changed to, “the monthly income corresponds to the average income earned in the 12 months preceding the date of the announcement of the application opening in the Official Gazette.” At the time, a legislator argued for maintaining the methodology of “choosing the more favorable option” to avoid exceptional cases of insufficient income. However, the Government responded that such an approach would increase the administrative workload of calculating scores and create unfair situations, thus upholding its decision.
The law does not explicitly require candidates to have worked for at least 12 months before applying. However, since the annual salary is divided by 12 months, the incomes of candidates who recently found jobs, are underemployed, or had short breaks between jobs fall below the minimum threshold. As a result, more people find themselves in a situation where they are neither able to buy a home nor qualify for social or economic housing. What’s most unfair is that while the application process for economic housing began in September 2023, by now, many candidates have already been working for more than a year and thus meet the income requirements. Nonetheless, they were excluded from the competition due to this unjust calculation.
The Government should seriously consider whether the current simplistic formula of dividing by 12 is reasonable. Instead, it should, in good faith, consider only the average income of the months of actual work within the past 12 months for applicants with genuine needs. This would ensure that those who previously met the requirements can access economic housing.
In my opinion, the new Government must rectify this situation and rigorously review housing policies, establishing a comprehensive plan for housing to allow the market to guide its true development. It is also necessary to clarify the positioning and planning of public and private housing supply and demand to achieve balance and foster a truly healthy development of the real estate market. Additionally, unreasonable rules, such as the immutability of the nature of economic housing, must be abolished. The types of public housing should be simplified into two groups—rental and sale. By adopting diverse strategies, we can promote vertical mobility among young people.
