alt Hacker News"Private equity generating rental income" is a lie fed you by the rich lobby. The real reason (everywhere in US and Europe) is zoning, which is a subsidy to the owners of existing buildings at the cost of everyone else.
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Zoning change would spike land value in more populated area much more closely located to metro center, but it will depress demand on locations further away from the urban center.
Calling it a "subsidy for existing owners" is a slighty of hand that avoids blaming the literal hordes of useful idiots who are happy to see all manner of asinine provisions written into the zoning code to cater to their interest, whatever that may be. If it were just property owners it wouldn't have gotten done. It's busybodies, environmentalists, moralizing jerks, etc, etc that provide the necessary political will.
> The real reason (everywhere in US and Europe) is zoning
This is a lie fed to you by the rich lobby. Destroying zoning would launch the value of the land current owners have into the stratosphere.
No, it isn't.
1/3 of the houses bought in the US are bought by these kinds of organizations. Zoning might matter, but large capital owners are buying up a large fraction of the houses that are for sale and this is obviously driving up prices.