I think the poster is going by the mistaken assumption that there isn’t enough housing so they’re looking for incentives to increase supply. which is not the issue.
If you wanted bread to be cheaper, you would increase the supply of bread.
If you want homes to be cheaper, increase the amount of homes.
It might not be the issue at hand, but it definitely is a valid solution.
Ideally, if one company charged too much for rent, the person living there could move to another place owned by a different company that would charge cheaper rent, in an effort to take business from the first company.
The issue arrives when monopolies control the majority of homes, but those monopolies can be broken much more easily if the cost of buying homes went down (from an increased supply of them) and the barrier to entry of new homeowners who want to rent went down. That would increase competition and would eliminate these monopolies.
unfortunately in reality that doesn’t happen in the market. you can force it though. the government can she should build as many houses as necessary, relatively high quality and super affordable if not free, especially since there’s no profit motive. make the houses owned by corporations pointless to the point that they’re forced to compete with a non-profit housing entity funded by the public.
and if they don’t do a good job just forcibly take them. housing must be a right and we should treat it as such.
How does that lower the cost of homes though?
Edit: to be clear, I mean the cost to the buyer, not the builder.
if you make more homes, then the value of each home individually would drop.
That’s not how it works in reality, unfortunately.
How so?
I think the poster is going by the mistaken assumption that there isn’t enough housing so they’re looking for incentives to increase supply. which is not the issue.
If you wanted bread to be cheaper, you would increase the supply of bread. If you want homes to be cheaper, increase the amount of homes. It might not be the issue at hand, but it definitely is a valid solution.
corporations are not hoarding bread so they can rent them at obscene rates.
Ideally, if one company charged too much for rent, the person living there could move to another place owned by a different company that would charge cheaper rent, in an effort to take business from the first company.
The issue arrives when monopolies control the majority of homes, but those monopolies can be broken much more easily if the cost of buying homes went down (from an increased supply of them) and the barrier to entry of new homeowners who want to rent went down. That would increase competition and would eliminate these monopolies.
unfortunately in reality that doesn’t happen in the market. you can force it though. the government can she should build as many houses as necessary, relatively high quality and super affordable if not free, especially since there’s no profit motive. make the houses owned by corporations pointless to the point that they’re forced to compete with a non-profit housing entity funded by the public.
and if they don’t do a good job just forcibly take them. housing must be a right and we should treat it as such.