> Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? That doesn't make much sense to me. 1/

> Why should we support a system where people can own many properties, each feeding them 1/2 of someone else's paycheck? That doesn't make much sense to me. 1/2 of the paycheck is only true for a few places with limited housing supply, which is the root cause of the problem. One could apply the same logic of "x% of the paycheck" to other spending items such as food and conclude that the state should also produce our food. > Public-owned housing is the future. It works in Europe and it can work here. Public housing in European countries accounts for less than 10% of the overall market and is mainly aimed at poor people. I do not see how this would be a general solution to the shortage of housing. > Treating housing as an investment vehicle is fundamentally incompatible with the ideal of housing being affordable. How can you possibly have affordable housing in a system where housing increases in value (cost) at 5% a year? True, but here, too, the cause is a lack of supply due to zoning, minimum parking requirements, minimum lot sizes and other restrictions.