Someone asked me what the government should be doing differently about the housing crisis. I ended up with this list. So it’s not exhaustive.

I think all of these are necessary to have a functioning housing market which (1) allows people to live in peace (2) builders to work productively to produce useful housing (3) stop investors gouging people (4) allows people to easily move house when they need to (5) allows people to choose to rent or house as suits their needs without huge costs.

But if any one of these is enacted it will tangible improve many people’s lives. Some of these I have already written about before in more depth. Others I will write about soon. I understand that most readers won’t see the value of these without a lot more explanation.

1. zoning offices vs housing in areas which lack them
2. incentivise appts w amenities instead of big houses (planning law depends on local need for cheap housing)
3. big tax per land area (or per house) & big UBI/subsidy for each resident/person
4. big vacancy tax, using the register of people’s addresses instead of self-certification. owners unwilling to pay must forfeit the property to the state.
5. remove costs of moving (stamp duty, seller does survey, govt does conveyancing)
6. price control (like capital gains tax / rental windfall tax)
7. tenants rights (ban on no fault evictions, sell the house with the tenants, tenants first right to buy, inspections, whistleblowing hotline, etc)
8. ban businesses owning housing (exemptions for universities etc who can get licences)
9. Ban on anyone owning >2 houses
10. open land register - know about vacancy rates and amenities/jobs/houses ratio