We do wonder sometimes

Here’s one of the ideas floating around about housing and rents and homelessness:

There are about 300,000 long-term empty homes in England. Housing people in some of these dwellings might be a good idea; capping rents at an affordable rate would be another,

Doing both would seem to be contraindicated, really.

There are 300,000 assets which the owners decline to put on the market at current prices. If we set - and thereby lower, given inflation and time - the price at which people can put their asset on the market then this is supposed to increase the number who put their asset on the market, is it?

We agree, something should be done but this isn’t one of the things. Just a little hint to those with grand plans for what everyone else should do. Try, at least, to make your plans move with the grain of human behaviour. People do more of things they are paid more to do, less of less. We can cry out to the very heavens that this should not be so but we do assure you all that it is so.

Tim Worstall