this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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Housing Bubble 2: Return of the Ugly
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There is a way to solve this problem. Britain had it in action and it worked fantastically well, until Thatcher fucked it up.
The government buys a bunch of property and rents it out at reasonable rates, popping the bubble. No one has to have communistic laws limiting their ability to charge rent on the still-over-inflated-value property they purchased. The government gets paid. Housing is cheap. Literally everyone wins except for people who were holding onto properties to rent them, who all of a sudden have to find something to do that is productive to society. Which is also a win.
Of course, because it is sensible, and rich people would lose value on their investments, it could never get past congress 🥲
Fuck that. The ship has sailed on that one and then the government built. Immigration means there is too much demand and there is not more useful land to expand into like there was previously.
The government absolutely needs to buy a load of land and build public transport. But need to demolish low density and auction the land while mandating certain density levels. As much as a Thacher is cow private industry needs to be involved in house building.
Rent control is a terrible idea, but it's not obvious to a lot of people. People really need to research this before having a view on it.