Only then will prices correct. It’s killing small businesses in the US. A modest retail business or restaurant can’t afford the $20,000 a month they want for a tiny unit.
Their control of the market is having harmful downstream effects on society.
I think the answer has to be a punitive vacancy tax: like if a commercial restaurant space is idle for 3 months, the tax rate for every property with the same commercial owner goes up every month. These properties being idle has ripple effects throughout a neighborhood which shouldn’t take years to recover.
This has a negative impact on a city, both in driving up prices for the actual residents, and in distorting the texture of a neighborhood.
If you want to have multiple homes that sit unoccupied for most of the year, you should definitely pay a punitive vacancy tax.
(Unless court challenges were successful, not sure the status and there’s always court challenges to everything)
A vacancy tax should also apply to landlords to encourage them to rent out units at actual market rate (rather than pretend market rate is something different for tax purposes).