i agree with your sentiment, but i don't think that rent control is a federal concern. we need to hold our state legislators accountable here. living in CA frustrates me in that regard, because we cannot pass a single f'ing bill about housing affordability generally, even though democrats have a super-majority and every politician and news outlet talks a big game on the topic. i'm ready to vote against every incumbent at this point.

in any case, part of the solution is to equalize the capital gains tax with income tax rates and have the capital gains tax escalate with the number of homes owned (but keep a small tax advantage for long-term owners of a primary lived-in home). and get rid of 1031 exchanges for investment property, which greatly advantage large capital holders over the average citizen.

There are too many loopholes with holding property. You can create and diversify among enough companies and eventually you won't have to pay tax at all.

No politician will vote for this because they know where their bread is buttered. It would be suicide as they would find out when they lose every large donor. I doubt we'll ever get people into office that would vote for anything to disadvantage property holders.

Even if you vote it in through a referendum, I expect a judge will crush it through some weaselly interpretation of the constitution or other precedent. California in particular has had several major referendums reversed by the courts. Will of the oligarchy, not that of the people.

Much simpler would be to raise property taxes to a reasonable level and redistribute that via a citizens' dividend /UBI. That gives you free market efficiency with no rent-seeking non-local owners sucking away the wealth, only reasonable fees for management and liquidity services.

Why federal? The federal government has no authority to do so. Housing is literally, more than any other market, an intra state matter, and the feds cannot regulate intra state trade.

I can't seem to reply to your other comment so I do so here.

It is entirely different to move your company or business to another country vs another state. Most people are not going to expatriate and most companies wouldn't gain much from doing so. Property is already much cheaper in Mexico, but you don't see anybody with a high-skill workforce moving there.

Then we need to fix that. No state will pass legislation along these lines because it will put them at an economic disadvantage to every state that doesn't.

I mean, and if a country does that it puts them at an economic disadvantage to every country that doesn't?