Renting homes is not causing social and economic problems.
Technology and efficiencies of scale obviating many jobs and concentrating them in small regions, causing an increase in demand without a correspondingly large enough increase in supply of housing is causing social and economic problems.
The solution to pricing problems is adjusting the demand or the supply curves.
You can only "leverage" that against those that don't because of excess demand versus supply. If there were many regions with good income security and upward potential, then it would bring rents down to levels at which owning vs renting wouldn't be so lopsided.
The other side of this coin is also the lack of income (or sufficient income), due to the reduced value of human labor due to the aforementioned automation and also the 3 billion other people in the world wanting to share in the dream of having the luxuries of the developed nations.
My point is that offering a residence for rent isn't inherently bad, and that attacking that isn't going to solve anything. Although, I think there are other problems caused by private ownership of land.
I’m not disparaging people looking out for themselves.
However, renting out an asset (which generally isn’t depreciating) is only going to increase the inequity between the renter and the landlord. If their relationship is based entirely on who can afford a deposit then I don’t see what excess of demand and supply has to do with it.
If you’re talking about building so many houses that they loose their value as a commodity entirely, the problem there is an entire generation who have staked their pensions on property.
Technology and efficiencies of scale obviating many jobs and concentrating them in small regions, causing an increase in demand without a correspondingly large enough increase in supply of housing is causing social and economic problems.
The solution to pricing problems is adjusting the demand or the supply curves.