I don't understand the downvotes. I honestly think what that is saying is true in a black and white way.
Grandparent says:
"get rid of all these complicated rent control and rent freezes and affordable housing scheme..."
I think this is fertile for discussion. Rent freezes didn't work in Argentina (extreme example), my opinion is they don't work anywhere. But oversupply does reduce prices, as happened with evergrande in China.
IMO interest in not having an oversupply bursting a bubble is precisely what parent is talking about.
Compare and contrast with Paraguay where you can build whatever you want whenever and there is an ample supply of housing and very little in rental returns.
Argentina is a great example. That said rent is also cheap in Buenos Aires. But I think that is due to the economy rather than rent control.
You’re right in that affordable housing in any real sense would be MASSIVELY unpopular with voters. You’d be looking at cutting values in half to reach 2000s levels of affordability or 75% to get to 1970s levels.
The best that can be done is freezing house prices nominally (or close to it) and then let inflation take over as supply increases.
People are really bad at working out constant dollars and have loans, as long as the nominal value is steady or going up slightly, they don't really care if the absolute value has dropped because of inflation.
Grandparent says: "get rid of all these complicated rent control and rent freezes and affordable housing scheme..."
I think this is fertile for discussion. Rent freezes didn't work in Argentina (extreme example), my opinion is they don't work anywhere. But oversupply does reduce prices, as happened with evergrande in China.
IMO interest in not having an oversupply bursting a bubble is precisely what parent is talking about.
Again, in a very absolute way of looking at life.