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It should be possible to make home purchases economically irrational for undesirable purchasers. For example, you could impose a draconian property tax on all non-owner occupied residential properties.

Financial investors and money launderers look at homes as illiquid, stable assets. They expect that they can extract their millions with a few week’s time, perhaps with gains from continued inflation. If they lose a significant portion of that value over the duration they hold the asset, it stops making sense.

A punitive tax like this should be pegged to some other “safe” asset. Perhaps a basket of national bonds from the G20. Ensure that taking residential inventory off the market produces a substantially worse return than those other options.

If you don’t want to kill domestic land lords, make it trivial for a citizen to apply for a waiver. Just know that the investor types will be motivated to subvert this system. Strongly recommend you have real jail time penalties for doing so. Financial folks hate real prison.



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