Hi everyone. I hate mathematics, but have always been curious why multiplying something by zero, negates the number entirely? I think of math starting out of basic necessity for trading of goods back in the day, and then clearly evolving from there. Someone at some point, had to define that 2 x 6 equals 12. So why wouldn’t 0 x 6 equal 6?

I personally believe that no individual or company should be allowed to own more than three residential properties in Britain. If they wish to own more then by law they should be forced to run it as a housing association, which are strictly regulated, have limits on the rent that can be charged and are basically non-profit organisations.

What are your ideas?

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your responses, this got way more attention than I expected and I’ll try to reply to as many as I can. In summary so far:

• Quality of new-builds laughable

• Amount of new-builds even more laughable

• Rent caps are good

• Foreign property investment needs to stop

• Airbnb takes the piss

• My idea above isn’t TOTALLY crazy

• This problem is more complicated than I first envisaged

EDIT2: Some fantastic responses and thanks again for taking the time to contribute to this discussion. Agree with each other or not, you guys have put forward considerably more sensible ideas than most politicians have in the last 20/30 years.

For context, I posted this question because in my home city (Edinburgh) the housing market is a fucking nightmare. I can’t buy with the 5% deposit mortgage for first time buyers because you need around £60-£100k in cash because that’s what most 1/2 bed places are going for that much over the asking price which you can’t borrow. I can’t rent either because the flats that aren’t Airbnb’s are in very short supply and most ive seen are about double per month than what the mortgage would be, which I can’t really afford. I can’t buy a new build affordable either because there isn’t enough available and in the city centre they only seem to be building student accommodation which is usually owned by, yep, you guessed it, foreign investors and pension funds.

Also, whilst there are good landlords out there (including on this thread it seems) as a renter you have no idea if your landlord is experienced, reasonable, fair etc or if they are one of the ones who’ve spent £1500 on an American Internet course on how to be a full time “property investor”, done up wherever they’re bought for cheap as possible and frankly couldn’t give a shit about living conditions and will happily turf you out to put the rent up / sell when some other opportunity becomes available to them.

Ultimately, because we all need a place to live, these exploitative practices continue because unlike with any consumer product, we don’t have a choice. We either put up with high rents, high house prices, poor build quality and all the other things discussed here, or we are homeless.