Building more luxury housing only creates vacancies in lower-tier housing markets if the wealthy people who bought the new luxury housing (a) move into the new

Building more luxury housing only creates vacancies in lower-tier housing markets if the wealthy people who bought the new luxury housing (a) move into the new luxury housing, (b) move out of their old housing, and (c) put their old housing on the market. Sadly this doesn't often seem to be the case. Sometimes new housing is purchased in order to have an additional permanent residence in another state, sometimes the new housing is purchased as an investment and kept empty. Sometimes housing is rented out (literally an economic rent) where the wallets of those less well-off are squeezed to line the pockets of the propertied class. There is a fundamental mismatch between real estate and housing. The feudal lords of centuries ago may have been far fewer in number and with far more day-to-day power, but the effect of private ownership of real estate being the lever of economic power is still quite real and true today. This isn't an argument for public ownership. Transportation and gridlock aside, suburbanization, where middle class people owned a small parcel of land on which their sole residence lay, was an enormous boon to those fortunate enough to access it. A modern approach that prioritizes density and modern transportation approaches while keeping that inherent formula - one residence for one family, with no other real estate holdings - will fix the housing market. How does this look like? * New development may not be purchased by private people, but by a public sector entity only, single-payer style. This public sector entity is then responsible for putting long-term housing on the market via rent-to-own at an auctioned price, i.e. the public sector entity establishes a price and holds an auction for the monthly rent, the person who bids the highest gets stable rent at that price for thirty years, after which the person becomes the registered owner of the property. If there are no bids, then a new auction is held; whether the price drops in the new auction or not are subject to market and political pressures. * Private sales of older developments are still legal, as is inheritance. Private renting is illegal. * Maintaining multiple residences incurs heavy property taxes at the federal level, with a three month overlap grace period to permit people to move into a new residence and put their old residence up for sale. Property owners may purchase adjacent properties (or buyout adjacent rent-to-owners) and combine them into a single property without incurring the tax, and subsequently may decide to parcel off some of their property and sell it (which would be tax neutral), but still may not rent out any portion of their newly-combined property. Property owners may decide to privately pay for redevelopment on their own, sole property, which would be tax neutral, and a grace period would be extended to ownership of a second property if that property is under redevelopment, for a maximum of one year, to not force people to live in a house that is under construction. If that could be enacted, watch real estate prices crash.