I’m more than willing to give up a bit of my extremely affluent lifestyle if it would genuinely help those around me who haven’t had the same economic opportunities as me.
All well and good. It's fine and commendable to personally sacrifice but when you start advocating for stripping property rights from other people to do it, it stops being a personal sacrifice and more of an imposition on others' freedom.
What about unintended backfire consequences of this law: people who own a place and are traveling, unable to put their places on airbnb because of this law and thus leaving vacant houses anyways and constricting short-term rental supply?
But, this law does deny others the same economic opportunities as you. If you've lived in your older home and want to rent it out and move elsewhere, you are allowed to. However, your younger cousins who are buying just now (and thus considering newer homes) will not. Thus, this law simply protects the old guard while throwing the young people under the bus in the name of screwing the rich. Congratulations!
I'm sorry, but while I agree with you that it's a violation of property rights, and that concerns me, it isn't in hope of a good faceless society.
I live in Spain, and the mediterranean coast is completely flooded with investors and foreigners buying property they don't live in, nor they rent for locals. Most of this places are now faceless, souless, tourist traps.
My sister inherited a flat in Ibiza, just in the city center, and I wouldn't go to live there no matter what. Nice for a week visit before foreigners flood in, though.
Same happend with Barcelona. Locals are being pushed out of the center and there has been years since it doesn't give the same feel as it used to, not to mention that everything feels designed as franchised for foreigners, expensive and increasingly soulless. They retain the architecture so that saves the look & feel of Barcelona, but it isn't anything similar of what used to be.
Same with the andalusian coast. More and more towns get investor's money for building resorts and all kind of crap.
I'm seeing this getting a little traction in my city, and I'm pretty worried. If that flood of money comes here to hit the property market, I won't be able to match the demand and I'll lose my lifestyle, and be forced to move somewhere else, at least to the outskirts of the city. So if my city council comes with a mechanism to prevent that, I'm gonna be on board, you can be sure of that.
You can buy a house now, instead of renting. This way, changes of property values are no longer a concern (unless property taxes are significant in Spain).