South Korea may do more within 'two to three weeks' to cool property-market speculation after gains in house prices, government minister Chung Jong Hwan said.

The government 'sees speculative demand in some areas and we won’t allow it,' Chung, the land, transport and maritime affairs minister, said in an interview in Seoul yesterday. He didn’t specify possible measures.

The central bank is monitoring a 'big' increase in mortgage lending and a pickup in real-estate prices, Bank of Korea Governor Lee Seong Tae said July 9. Record-low interest rates that are stoking the nation’s economic recovery may also inflate property-price bubbles.

bloomberg.com