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Comment by breadbreadbread | Hacker News Reader

We do have an abundance of housing. There are millions of empty homes/housing units. Housing redistribution would involve cracking down on the landlord class to release those homes from exploitative pricing and rental strategies.

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We don't have an abundance of housing compared to past times. In desirable-to-live areas there are severe housing shortages, largely due to NIMBY activists opposing new construction of housing in those desirable-to-live areas because they want to protect and further inflate the price of their own property by using the government to artificially constrain the supply.

What are you proposing by "cracking down"? I disagree with your sentiment but do think that it is absurd the federal government subsidizes mortgages on second homes. But I haven't heard a single proposal from the left to eliminate that welfare program for the wealthy.

Probably because once you get away from the coasts, you realize that a lot of people with second homes are not what you'd typically think of as wealthy. Around here a second home is often a cabin "Up North" or a trailer home on a few acres where you go hunting a few times a year or spend weekends. Something your average electrician or plumber can afford.

Good luck to any politician that goes up against that!

Just to be clear, Landlords and Home Owners aren't the same. I do live in a coastal city, but I think even rural/suburban areas would agree that the real estate market has made home ownership less and less achievable. I suppose that the issue I'm concerned with is more generally about the American real estate market at large, landlords/the rent cycle are just a part of that.

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