Taking away citizens' right to sell to whomever they wish is not a moral solution.
> Taking away citizens' right to sell to whomever they wish is not a moral solution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_R...
We do regulate to whom we sell specific things (real estate is obviouly not exactly the same) but allowing international kleptocrats to launder / hide their money in western cities is hardly the most moral choice one could propose.
edit: I'm not opposed to such legislation on moral terms but I don't think I can trust the state with enforcing legislation like that - finding a good way of treating real estate investment funds or long chains of shell companies seems extraordinarily difficult (it already is pretty hard to trace who owns what internationally).
> but allowing international kleptocrats to launder / hide their money in western cities is hardly the most moral choice one could propose.
This would be a political decision which should be treated as such.
The real estate market needs slightly different analysis from normal free market dogma because it's subject to the constraints of physical space: you can't just make more of it. If high prices increased the availability of plots in downtown Portland then the problem could solve itself.