There should be huge taxes on empty houses. This breaks the supply demand price negotiation, if they can gauge price by 2x they dont care if they rent half the houses.
Wouldn't the landlords would just take a loss and sell the property to avoid penalties?
.. Cities also rely quite a bit on property and real estate transfer taxes. By reducing property values, cities destroy their own tax base while needing lots of additional money to renovate state-acquired, vacant properties.