Every time this issue comes up, people seem to think there is a single silver bullet that will resolve it. This is a perfect storm problem and will take a solution from multiple angles:

- Restrict and tax short-term rentals.

- Introduce a scaling speculation tax on three or more properties to remove the incentive for small-medium size investors to hoard. It will return supply back to the market.

- Limit residential real-estate purchases to citizens and permanent residents (i.e. taxpayers).

- Remove barriers to development to increase supply. Ignore the NIMBYs.

- Cap rental increases.

- Introduce a vacancy tax.

- Limit immigration until the housing issue is resolved.

- Eliminate "blind bidding" from real estate sales.

I doubt any government has the political will to truly tackle this though, especially when most politicians are landlords and speculators themselves.