China moves to cap the cost of renting a home in cities

submitted by EthnocratArcheofuturist from self.debatealtright

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[–]casparvoneverecBig tiddy respecter 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Measures such as these have almost never worked anywhere. It's the same with price controls in a dozen Latin American and even European countries.

The root of the problem is twofold. One is excessive density in major cities and that drives up prices to infinity. The other is allowing the money markets to enter the real estate business. Buying and selling homes, doing business with the housing mortgages, packaging them into CDCs...things like this rapidly raise the price of homes.

A solution would be for the state to bar banks, institutional investors, and foreigners from the real estate markets and create separate banks for housing loans that can't be traded on the open market.

Another more radical solution would be for the state to simply build large numbers of homes and rent them to people at minimum value. After a certain period of residence, the ownership of the home could be transferred to the family. Though, I'd say this solution is a bit out there. The USSR did it and they ended up with soulless communist blocks with no individuality.

[–]Blackbrownfreestuff 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The USSR did it and they ended up with soulless communist blocks with no individuality.

I'm not advocating this policy, but we have possibly worse problems in the west right now than soulless blocks. Have you been to Portland or Denver? Portland has tent cities everywhere. Paris is looking rough too. Other western cities are forming large slums.