>>1293335tell the free-market folks (conservatives) that getting the highest price for urban housing without any requirement that one actually live there makes it a target for wealthy foreign nationals t invest in but not actually live there, the advantage being their government can't tax it and it can be liquidated immediately. As mentioned, the Chinese are particularly fond of this strategy, see Vancouver, London (also a fair amount of Arab oil money there.)
These "vacation homes" are not residences, they are assets. So, not only are these homes in the central city not housing anyone therefore creating a housing shortage, the rich neighborhoods become ghost towns that cannot support local businesses (restaurants, grocery, convenience stores) nor transit stops/stations, so the city gets double fucked.
Or the conservative, free market strategy popular in the US of waiting on a buyer for land downtown, so instead of developing housing, you raze the existing structure, make it a parking lot which requires no real development costs but allows you to pay the property taxes + profit indefinitely while the real estate increases due to housing shortage that you and your ilk actively created.
the free market is easily as cancerous to housing shortages as any leftist policies. as the other anon said, the real problem is civic incompetence over political dogma.
