Whether it's affordable to own in cities isn't entirely independent of what restrictions we put on landlords. To take one end of the restrictions scale: if bein

Whether it's affordable to own in cities isn't entirely independent of what restrictions we put on landlords. To take one end of the restrictions scale: if being a landlord were simply banned, i.e. you could occupy property but not rent it out, purchase prices of apartments in most situations would end up lower. Copenhagen does that in large swathes of its property market, for example, by requiring owner-occupancy in some categories of housing. And you can clearly see the price differential: apartments in the buildings that allow unrestricted rental have much higher purchase prices than otherwise similar apartments in buildings restricted to owner-occupancy, by often a factor of 2-3x. (That isn't to say as a policy proposal this would fix SF's particular problems, just that purchase prices aren't independent of landlords' role in the property market, as prospective owner-occupiers have to bid against prospective landlords in cases where landlordism is permitted.)