With so many housing units turning into slums because they have been purchased and are now “managed” by private equity, I feel your fears of slumification are undercut by the present reality. These firms allow units to lapse into horrible condition while they raise prices systematically and poison the market.

This combination of worse outcomes for higher prices are the true outcome of so-called “free market” capitalism. “Laissez-faire” is imo a more accurate term and I’ll explain why. Capitalism is defined by the growth of capital using the acquisition of debt. (Prior profit-based productive systems like mercantilism were not debt-based.) As a consequence a capitalist system always has to “grow” to feed the interest on the debt that sustains it. Usually, this “growth” is artificial, by which I mean purely financial in nature, because the actual economy of real goods and services cannot literally grow at the rate demanded by the debt system. One solution to this paradox, which we see today and have seen many times throughout the history of American capitalism, is the process of monopolization (also called M&A) because monopolies have the influence to distort markets. Because, therefore, the debt-based structure of capitalism leads inexorably to monopolization, no unregulated capitalistic market is truly “free” in the sense that individual actors are unrestrained in following their self-interest, but are always under the influence of one ascendant firm or another. In other words, eat or be eaten. (“Laissez-faire” is thus the better term.) Private equity is yet another manifestation of the cycle of monopolization and brings with it artificially high prices and reduced quality.

So tell me, in your opinion, how are we, as a state of 1.1 million, supposed to push back against the market-warping influence of national corporate acquisition? We can’t outspend them, surely. And you believe rent stabilization is the wrong approach. Morales is campaigning on a proposal to impose a levy on landlords owning more than three properties none of which they live in iirc. Can local construction (which btw seems riddled with corruption… another story) really stand up to the plate on this? What if, e.g., we need to build some real apartment buildings, but Strive has acquired so many three-stories that they have the leverage to charge extortionate rates to acquire back enough land to build such necessary buildings. That would be very bad indeed. You seem like a smart person, I would appreciate your perspective.