Some do. California froze property taxes state wide. Many cities then instituted price controls on rents. The result is prices over $10 per square foot in citie

Some do. California froze property taxes state wide. Many cities then instituted price controls on rents. The result is prices over $10 per square foot in cities like San Francisco. Rent control means that renters have a big incentive not to move to different apartments. I've even heard stories of people continuing to rent their places after they've moved to different cities so that they can keep the same rents if they ever move back to San Francisco. Freezes on property taxes means that homeowners try to hold onto their home as long as possible. Because many home owners invest a big portion of their net worth into their house, they are often very adverse to anything that might make home values go down (like building more housing). Frozen rents + frozen property taxes = extremely high rents due to little supply of housing