Priced out of home ownership

I am not referring to building public housing. I am saying the government should build housing as if it were a for-profit company. Take those profits, and re-invest into building even _more_ housing. Don't try to sell to those in need, sell to those who are speculating on real estate and increase supply at the same time.

It’s also a good way to ensure companies can milk the government of money and then the head of those companies can lobby the government to keep things how they are so they continue to get that government money.

- Increasing density in older cities requires infrastructure upgrades that are much more complex and expensive to retrofit than it was to plan and build the first time when space was abundant.

- Multi-story buildings are more expensive per floor space area than single-story buildings. As cities become denser, the added expense of multi-story buildings is realised.

- Home standards have dramatically increased. We've forgotten how common it used to be for houses to leak during storms, or how hot or cold houses used to be without any insulation or HVAC systems. We've forgotten flash floods caused by inadequate stormwater systems. Where children used to grow up in bunk beds in tiny shared bedrooms, they now are expected to have their own adult-sized room. Where a small kitchen used to suffice, people now expect a huge show kitchen and butlers pantry that is double the size of old smaller kitchens. Or in a country such as China, millions of people have forgotten what living in a cave house was like for their grandparents.

- Complexity of expected amenities and public services have dramatically increased, resulting in people wanting to live inside large cities rather than spread out across small towns. People want to live within an hour of travel to a MRI machine and healthcare specialists. Or instead of shopping at one food store or dining out in one of two restaurants in a small town, people want to be within a few minutes of 20 choices of cuisine in a large city.

- Materials are more expensive because it has been realised that clear-felling old growth forest is not sustainable, nor is digging up the easiest to extract resources, and we're just starting to realise how expensive sustainable resource extraction actually is. As a result of increased quality of housing and infrastructure, materials are enormously more complex and varied.

- Safety standards for construction labour are significantly improved, even if just by worker and public expectation. It's no longer acceptable for labourers to be working in dusty environments or working at heights without scaffolding and harnesses having been planned and setup first.

- Increasingly affluent populations are aging and naturally reducing in size. In such a demographic shift, workers can prefer safer and easier jobs that don't risk life-long back and joint injuries and all the other types of health risks common to the construction industry.

You're asking for people to fund the infrastructure speculators thrive on with their money, on top of that you want to depress housing prices which another large cohort of society will vote against, politically your proposal doesn't make sense.

If you cared to read the Wikipedia entry I shared the approach the Swedish government took was to pay 2/3 of the new constructions and sell those houses to people who would pay them back in 30 years, it's not "public housing" as you assumed...

Why not apply the following: - every house not used for primary living place is highly taxed (removing all speculative ownership) - charge foreign investors heavily (australia will do this soon) - tax reduction for renting places for lower than median per square meter price - incentivising affordable homes

Just trying to understand why this wouldn’t work?