[pianopatrick]

I'd be fine with a policy of "you can rent housing you build" for American corporations.

If a corporation thinks there is demand in some city, goes and build housing for that demand and then rents that housing, that is good for the world.

Would be a better policy than letting corporations use their access to capital markets to outcompete individuals trying to buy a house.

[JumpCrisscross]

> I'd be fine with a policy of "you can rent housing you build" for American corporations

Builders are more concentrated than landlords in pretty much any geography. A concentration that scales with the amount of bureaucracy and bullshit required to get permits.

[cush]

You can rent a home after you’ve personally owned it and lived in it for 10 years? That would cap any individual to 3-4 rentals in a lifetime

[Seattle3503]

We need more rental units, and it isn't clear how that policy would help the situation.

[alistairSH]

Need to think about this some... Would this end up being another way for MegaCorp to extract wealth from the rest of us (similar to student loans)? All new housing ends up rentals, and a generation+ of Americans are unable to use homes for storing/building wealth?

We know using housing as an investment, at an individual level, is problematic (NIMBYism and failure to infill/redevelop/etc). Not sure how incentivizing MegaCorp to do the same on a massive scale fixes anything?

[bombcar]

Simply greatly reducing loans available to small investors for non-built rental properties would do that.

The key is increasing supply, and we should directly target that issue (or decrease demand, but people don't like that side).

[pianopatrick]

"The key is increasing supply" assumes the goal of new housing laws should be to increase supply and bring house prices down. But a lot of people do not agree with that goal. Many people are homeowners who will get tens of thousands of dollars richer if there is less supply and prices rise. And in America at least, homeowners have more votes than renters or builders or landlords or the homeless or other groups. So new housing law tends to favor the goals of homeowners, not the goals of other groups who want more supply.

[KumaBear]

Then it would be lucrative to buy up land and sit on it to hold a monopoly on the competition. Can’t build or rent what you can’t buy.

[pianopatrick]

I suppose that depends on the way the property tax system works. Paying 1-2% property tax each year on empty land does not seem like a path to riches.

[mmooss]

Maybe if it doesn't include property with existing homes that you tear down.