Housing expert Raquel Rolnick: “Of course you have to regulate rents.”

If a family puts their savings into a second home and rents it out, is that part of the solution or part of the problem?
Rolnick: Two things: In addition to the takeover of the major financial players, a general dismantling of our social security is underway. Maybe less in Belgium than elsewhere, but still. Results? As soon as I have the opportunity to buy a second home or a studio to rent out, I will do so. Because in this way I increasingly provide the protection that Social Security provides. So smallholders are part of the problem, but I don't blame them.

Brussels is now trying to regulate the rental market. Some fear that small owners will withdraw from the study because it becomes too burdensome, leading to further concentration of ownership. Approves?
Rolnick: (Makes waving motion) Rent regulation has always caused a lot of resistance, but we really need it. In New York, DC, there has been rent control since the 1970s, ensuring that working-class people can still afford to live in New York, despite all the gentrification. Rents are limited in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, and that hasn't had disastrous consequences, has it? Of course, this is not a magic solution for everything. If you want to address the housing problem structurally, you have to break the link between housing and the financial market.