[exporectomy]

And factors that incentivize people to buy houses with rooms they won't live in! I.e. owner-occupiers. I'm trying to say that these people are a major cause of high prices but they're the "us" and the "goodies" and even the "victims" so it's not popular to blame them. Instead, the popular opinion is to blame some outgroup like foreigners, nebulous "rich" people, "evil" investors, etc.

One way for it to stop is for owner-occupiers to stop fetishizing a single family home on a 1/4 acre section and tolerate living in a high density apartment like most people in big cities everywhere else in the world.

[CTDOCodebases]

They are contributing to the problem no doubt but I doubt they are the major reason. The prices of apartments are also rising. I rented a studio for 10 years in Sydney and the price doubled in that time. I would have purchased it or one similar if not for the lending restrictions that properties had to be over a specific size. So instead of owning my own place I paid off half of the owners investment property while they delayed and refused repairs at every opportunity.

I am not demonising these people. I am just merely saying that the Australian government, the banking industry and Australian society at large believe that it’s more important that a citizen/non-citizen can lease a residential property than it is for an average citizen and wage earner to be able to purchase a property to live in.

I find it funny that at the beginning of the pandemic when people were buying up all the available toilet paper to sell at a markup they were “selfish” but somehow doing the same with shelter is not.