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While it is a multitude of factors, a bunch of those factors could be solved in an instant with a simple new regulation: a cap on how many homes a single entity

While it is a multitude of factors, a bunch of those factors could be solved in an instant with a simple new regulation: a cap on how many homes a single entity/person can own, with steep taxes applied to every home above that cap. This would flood the market with homes as investors and corporate landlords moved to unload inventory and the prices would fall drastically. One could even have a cap that lowers over a long period of time to avoid shocking the market too hard with stock and keep current homeowners relatively stable, but ultimately, we can't keep letting corporations and wealthy people lock up perfectly usable housing behind private property nonsense. It's literally killing people. Ultimately, these empty homes are investments and sometimes investments fail, and if they're big enough sometimes those failed investments cause people to lose a lot more than what they invested. That's literally the definition of investment risk. We can't keep doing status quo with this shit while the market continues to sail further and further out of reach of all the people who actually need what it's selling.

Marsymars 2y ago
It seems to me that such a cap would help affordability for people who are currently renting homes that they can't afford to buy, but it's not going to make more homes available (and might slow down the rate of building due to the value of a newly built home being lower), so won't help anyone who isn't already in a home, or who already owns their home. (The latter of which it will hurt by decreasing their home value.)
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Hard disagree. The market is complex but a massive driver of price hikes is investment companies and private owners coming in to an already hot market and making cash offers that are higher than any aspiring homeowner can match with loans, which are inherently tied to the stated assessment of the property. It's the largest factor in the absolutely ridiculous prices we're currently seeing, and also the most straightforward to address. It won't fix everything, of course, but it will give us a much more normalized market to then attempt further reform on, rather than the current one which has more in common with a casino floor than a market.
  - Marsymars 2y ago
    I'm not really clear on what you're disagreeing on. I've acknowledged that prices could go down for people who are already in homes and who don't own them - that's the only portion of the market that your post and proposal addresses.
nayuki 2y ago
Nice try. Oh The Urbanity! - "What Happened When This City Banned Housing Investors": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRqZBuu_Ers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRqZBuu_Ers
- throwitaway222 2y ago
  It was such a small study that it favorably attracted outsiders that finally got a chance at owning, which gentrified the community. If this was more of a global policy, the study would have reveal massively different results.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  I'm not watching that clickbaity nonsense, but I will happily flip through the studies they cite as their sources, and doing so tells me several things. For one, the city did not "ban housing investors," they banned some investors from purchasing a subset of homes, which is already weak, and only made weaker by the fact that the first study analyzes only a few months of market activity under that new restriction. That being said, both studies do indeed conclude that a link cannot be established with certainty between the policy and house price reduction. > Results from the difference in difference analysis show that the null hypothesis that the policy effect on home prices and days on the market is not significantly different from zero cannot be rejected. This means that it cannot be concluded that the buy-to-let restriction reduced housing prices or increased the days on the market. However, this is one city, not in America notably where the problem is at it's worst, and they did not restrict lower income housing which is the most liable to be outbid on by private investors and rented, so I would hardly say these two studies by themselves utterly disprove anything in the way your dismissive comment implies they do. I don't think a partial restriction on a housing market in one metropolitan area out of the roughly ten-thousand currently on the planet is definitive proof.

Marsymars 2y ago

It seems to me that such a cap would help affordability for people who are currently renting homes that they can't afford to buy, but it's not going to make more homes available (and might slow down the rate of building due to the value of a newly built home being lower), so won't help anyone who isn't already in a home, or who already owns their home. (The latter of which it will hurt by decreasing their home value.)

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
Hard disagree. The market is complex but a massive driver of price hikes is investment companies and private owners coming in to an already hot market and making cash offers that are higher than any aspiring homeowner can match with loans, which are inherently tied to the stated assessment of the property. It's the largest factor in the absolutely ridiculous prices we're currently seeing, and also the most straightforward to address. It won't fix everything, of course, but it will give us a much more normalized market to then attempt further reform on, rather than the current one which has more in common with a casino floor than a market.
- Marsymars 2y ago
  I'm not really clear on what you're disagreeing on. I've acknowledged that prices could go down for people who are already in homes and who don't own them - that's the only portion of the market that your post and proposal addresses.

nayuki 2y ago

Nice try. Oh The Urbanity! - "What Happened When This City Banned Housing Investors": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRqZBuu_Ers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRqZBuu_Ers

throwitaway222 2y ago
It was such a small study that it favorably attracted outsiders that finally got a chance at owning, which gentrified the community. If this was more of a global policy, the study would have reveal massively different results.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
I'm not watching that clickbaity nonsense, but I will happily flip through the studies they cite as their sources, and doing so tells me several things. For one, the city did not "ban housing investors," they banned some investors from purchasing a subset of homes, which is already weak, and only made weaker by the fact that the first study analyzes only a few months of market activity under that new restriction. That being said, both studies do indeed conclude that a link cannot be established with certainty between the policy and house price reduction. > Results from the difference in difference analysis show that the null hypothesis that the policy effect on home prices and days on the market is not significantly different from zero cannot be rejected. This means that it cannot be concluded that the buy-to-let restriction reduced housing prices or increased the days on the market. However, this is one city, not in America notably where the problem is at it's worst, and they did not restrict lower income housing which is the most liable to be outbid on by private investors and rented, so I would hardly say these two studies by themselves utterly disprove anything in the way your dismissive comment implies they do. I don't think a partial restriction on a housing market in one metropolitan area out of the roughly ten-thousand currently on the planet is definitive proof.