this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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Thing is, someone owns those houses and it's certainly not poor people like me. Also we need more housing in most western countries and private entities are definitely not going to build it if they can't rent it out. We need to figure out a way to force public entities like the state to build more housing.
A communist (or similar) revolution might take care of it, but that's a lot more involved than "all landlords disappear".
Mortgage payments are often cheaper than rent. The barrier for poorer people to owning is usually downpayment requirements and credit. There are many reasons for the "housing crisis;" most stemming from real-estate being treated as a speculative asset or "investment," which incentivizes all kinds of phenomenon harmful to society.
Such a paradox isnt it. We have declining birth rates in the west, yet somehow we have a housing shortage. Its like they deliberately drove down building to drive up prices.
We might have declining birthrates, but we also have substantially different living arrangements. 100 years ago, millions of 70 year olds living alone in a one family house would not be a thing. And part of the reason for the birthrate decline is that younger people are single for longer periods of time, which means they aren't living with a partner - most single adults will live in one person households if they can.
If all those people that have money to build houses were forced to give it away (taxes), we the people (the government) could just build the houses and not charge exorbitant rent.
The hard part is how to actually make the government do that. And ideally without turning your state into a stalinist or maoist dystopia.