It's basically illegal to build dense homes in most cities. And despite what people say, the vacancy rate is at historic lows so its not just "people are keeping them empty"
Its a disgrace that people deny the supply crunch we are in
Housing as an investment creates all kinds of terribly misaligned political incentives for local democracies. A land value tax would've helped by shifting people's nest egg from the value of their homes to their accumulated savings from income.
As it is, NIMBYism is likely the biggest driver of rising costs of living, rising homelessness, rising municipal debt, and generational class divides.
Devil's advocate, I don't think we should keep building more housing insofar as it encourages population growth (which it does). Like highways, there will always be barely enough, no matter how many lanes/houses we build.
But population growth is the overwhelming factor in all of our sustainability issues.
The reason there will never be enough lanes is not population growth. It's that we generally don't provide people with alternatives to driving, and adding more lanes just makes even more people have to drive, since things get even farther apart.
So in response to the rapidly rising prices, we should not build any housing because it doesn't matter? Surely there is still a positive benefit since there must be less than one person wanting to move in per new unit otherwise they would have already moved in?
Its a disgrace that people deny the supply crunch we are in