Abstract
December 30, 2011 "Act on the Maintenance and Improvement of Urban Areas and Dwelling Conditions for Residents" was revised and "Residential Environmental Management Project" and "Avenue and Housing Maintenance Project" were first introduced. So, the interest is even higher for "residents' self housing improvement". This study aims to analyze the Korean and German cases, and suggests issues with current Korean support systems and related projects to help the resident's self housing improvement. In the case of Korea, It was found that the burden on the residents amounted to 34.3% of construction costs to improve their houses on their own. However, in the case of Germany, "Citizen Participatory Housing Construction" (Einfach und selber Bauen) was in place so that residents in a deteriorated residential area can easily improve their houses. As a result, they were able to improve their houses on their own using only 9.6% of construction costs. To solve these problems in Korea, this study has offered three proposals; 1) expanding the support fund and target for the low-interest mortgage support, 2) establishing the management and promotion systems as well as the flexible operation of the housing improvement support and 3) supporting the joint re-construction due to property merging.