Governments should just build a bunch of socialized housing and rent it at a rent just high enough to offset the expenditure (i.e. way below private market value). That would put downward pressure on rents.
That is what Vienna did and they are the only popular city in Europe without a serious housing crisis.
That would be so perverse if the government gave itself a monopoly on building housing. Just change zoning and make it legal for the private market to meet the need. Look at all the builders remedy projects in Santa Monica to see that this works.
Housing is more or less maxed out with respect to zoning laws in a lot of places. Those come from the government. Rezone to allow higher density and people will build. It is functionally illegal to build more housing.
Yes, because of NIMBYism. Existing property owners benefit from an undersupply of housing, so they lobby for restrictions in order to reduce competition which would drive down prices and rents.
The point is not to get the socialized housing yourself. The point is that the private market rent prices go down, which is objectively true of Vienna.
Yes, I follow the point. I am disputing your characterization of "popular city in Europe without a serious housing crisis". On the strength of available evidence, Vienna has what can be fairly described as a serious housing crisis.
The UK had this system (council housing) and then basically dismantled it in the 80s. Then imposed some even more stupid rules. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41324305
It hasn't been dismantled. In fact, 20% of the private rental market is supported by the government.
All that happened is that councils stopped building homes and sold some of the ones they had to current occupants (and councils actually also have control over planning permission, so they did this and blocked anyone from building new houses at all).
There is other stuff going on (it is likely impossible for the UK to build enough housing given demographic trends atm) but this is all caused by not building enough houses (the reason why investors are buying houses in Canada is because there aren't enough of them, it is all the same problem).
