I still don't understand how this hasn't been a bigger priority in government. I wouldn't expect Republicans to care about it at all, but it feels like nobody is giving it any attention at the State or National level. These out-of-control rents and housing prices are insane. I've got a relatively ok salary and I'm barely staying on top of things, but I don't know how the hell anybody else is still holding it together.

I would add a progressively higher tax rate for each property beyond 2-3.

HOAs should be banned too. They're nominally constitutional under the first amendment but the restrictions they impose are not worth the price you pay in dues and they only serve to restrict the actual property owner from pursuing happiness. Everything the HOA could do is a function of local government, there's no sane reason to pay both property taxes and HOA fees.

You've got my vote.

Exorbitantly high residential property tax rates, with even higher owner-occupancy credits.

Landlords will stop renting, and start issuing land contracts or private mortgages. "Tenants" will hold the deed to the property, and be earning equity. "Landlords" will have a major incentive to get their investment properties under contract and out of their name, lest they face a huge tax bill.

I think there is value provided when someone buys a dilapidated house and renovates it into something worthwhile to sell, even if it takes less than 2 years.

Or for me personally, I bought less than 2 years ago but the experience has given me a better idea of what I really want and I'd love to be able to sell to break even on this place and buy a different place that more fits my needs.

High short term capital gains taxes would help with the 2nd case (as I don't intend to make money from owning this place briefly) but not the first.

I absolutely agree that we need to focus significant energy on a more stable housing (not homeowner) market.

However

Ban companies (including hedge funds, etc) from owning condos and houses. Apartment complexes are still fair game, because society needs high occupancy buildings which require more capital to build and run.

This just means fewer homes get built, period, adding to the problem. Id support restrictions on these groups purchasing homes specifically on the secondary market instead of an outright ban/strong Pigouvian tax.

Heavy penalties for selling in under 2 (as an example) years. This will also curb the short term rentals due to added risk, as well as curbing the flippers relisting at 30%+ (and I’ve seen 100%) markups after 3 months.

This will straight up just lead to bankruptcy, foreclosure, and then cheap speculation. This would be incredible dangerous, and you'd need to put a lot of protections in for homeowners that wouldn't somehow be abused by flippers.

I'd also love to see protections baked in for people who purchase prior foreclosure/condemned properties and turn those into marketable/livable homes - that's an increase in supply and we should encourage it

What we primarily need is to rip our zoning policies out by the root and encourage lots of building, as I'm sure you'd agree, but that's a local problem. These changes at the federal level, once hammered out, could help a lot.

I'd argue that better urbanism is part and parcel of real estate reform. It would be much more difficult to entirely fuck up the housing market if we weren't so utterly dependent on single family homes and there were more apartments being managed by small to mid-size firms.

100%

We still need rental properties, and small local landowners should be the priority.

Landlords aren't necessary for rentals to exist. We built hundreds of thousands of government owned properties every year(!) the UK's post-war period. Some of them have bad rep for looking like soviet blocks, but modern social flats look like any other now so that isn't a valid complaint anymore (I have to point them out to friends, they otherwise wouldn't have a clue). These can and have been very much used for temporary accommodation, like private rental units.

If you're more of a market economy fan: we also state-funded housing cooperatives, democratically owned housing. Vienna is the popular example where they even have shared communal swimming pools, but 20% of Norway's entire population lives in them and they're still growing steadily despite not having gov. funding for decades. It's not impossible to come up with a way to use these as rental units while retaining the democratic element (i.e. the renters "own" the flat while they rent it and "sell" it on when they move). In Norway, for example, you're exempt from property transfer taxes when you sell a coop flat meaning there's no tax friction if you want to move from one coop flat to another. Since the flat is never technically yours in a coop (only the share giving you the right to reside there) it just goes back to the coop when you move out, and they can handle renting it on to someone else (so you don't need a slow bartering process to move out). Your rent can also straight up go towards a larger share in the property, so you're not propping up some landlord, the only thing you're really paying for is management of the coop like you would with a privately owned block of flats anyway (except the coop probably wouldn't spend thousand on an Xmas tree).

If we're going to be thinking about government regulation and law changes anyway, we may as well try more than just small ""ethical"" landlords. They may well be part of it in some limited way but let's think beyond just that.

I'd go a step further and say you can only rent out what you built. No buying existing housing in cheap areas to rent out.

If you want to be a landlord then you can pool your money with other people to actually create housing.