I don't think that's a useful framing, because it's again putting the framing in terms of market dynamics in a vacuum. People don't pick where they're born, they don't pick who their parents are, and they don't pick the socioeconomic status that they're born into or have as children. The majority of people are born somewhere and cannot really afford to leave. For example, 72% of Americans live in or near the city where they were raised (https://www.northamerican.com/infographics/where-they-grew-u...). Most people don't have the agency to pick where they live based on price alone, because other non-market factors become comparatively larger when you have less money. If you can pick where you live based on price and how interesting it sounds, congratulations, that is privileged position. That's not to shame that position or anything, I'm just saying that the problem has to be viewed from the standpoint that most people aren't in that position. People are interdependent with their relatives, their friends, and their neighbors. Moving costs more than simply the price sticker of your new home minus the price sticker of your old home: the social costs are enormous. I think that a basic right of modern societies should be that people should not be priced out of their homes because of the whims of investors. So again, I think the idea that these things should be viewed through the lens of market dynamics alone is inhumane.
> Your proposed solution will increase rent prices for people who can't afford to buy a house while pushing the housing prices down and making them more affordable to middle class.
ok maybe. My point isn't that I have the perfect solution, my point is that there are far more levers to pull than what was being suggested, and that I do not want to live in a society that considers the problem by only looking at markets and pricing.