The government has decided to expand the use of modular housing to speed up home construction, but there are no statistics that would show how much of it is being built — a gap that critics say makes legal and institutional groundwork urgent if an industry ecosystem is to take shape. While modular construction can shorten build times compared with conventional reinforced concrete methods, its economics remain weak, and there are growing calls to move quickly on a special act offering support measures to draw in manufacturers and builders that have been reluctant to invest.
According to relevant ministries on the 25th, the government has settled on a direction of promoting the modular housing industry and expanding public-sector orders to address the housing supply shortage. Discussions have gained momentum in particular since President Lee Jae-myung, at a site meeting in the Gyeyang new town in Incheon on the 20th, instructed officials to review ways to accelerate the commercialization of modular housing.
Yet the industrial base is so thin that there are no official statistics on modular housing supply or market size, and the legal framework remains incomplete — complicating efforts to provide tailored incentives and introduce special exemptions. Only public-sector supply plans, such as those from the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH), have been announced, leaving the state of the manufacturing ecosystem unclear. An official at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said the legal framework must be put in order before there is any basis for easing regulations or offering support, adding that the ministry is still gathering information on supply conditions through the industry.
That has prompted warnings that the Special Act on Promoting Modular Construction — introduced in the National Assembly last December but stalled in committee for more than 10 months — must be enacted quickly for the push to translate into faster housing supply. Seo Jin-hyung, a professor of real estate law at Kwangwoon University, said production costs remain high because modular housing has yet to achieve economies of scale. "We need to establish legal standards through a special act and expand the ecosystem by increasing public-sector orders," the professor said.