That's ridiculous. While I agree with you that these problems are caused by using houses as a speculative vehicle, "only the initial sale should be profitable"

That's ridiculous. While I agree with you that these problems are caused by using houses as a speculative vehicle, "only the initial sale should be profitable" would cause way way worse problems than this. This is a very ill thought out proposal, hammers destroy everything but nails. The actual solutions to this problem are things like higher taxes on second properties, high capital gains tax on selling more than X homes in your lifetime (similar to the lifetime gift tax cap) or on "short term" speculative buys, reduction in ridiculous code and regulations on what sort of shelters people can live in/build for themselves, and I'm sure others I haven't thought of or heard of.