system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Should residential rental investment be disincentivised?

Across the world, investing in residential housing as an investment is extremely popular. So much of people's wealth is tied up in housing. 

Are there any disadvantages of this? Should residential renting be disincentivised?
gpt
Should is not a thing economics can tell you about, but here we can also talk the trade-offs present in a policy proposal so that you can decide what trade-offs you think we should make. 

When an "investor" buys a house the purchase price of housing is expected to marginally increase but when they go to rent it out the rental price of housing is expected to marginally decrease. So, what actually changes when we allow investors to buy housing to rent out? The person who gets to live in the housing unit. Do you have some reason to prefer that the, on average, relatively well off get to utilize some random house instead of the, on average, relatively less well off?