Canada

At the end of the day, rent prices are driven by house prices. If rents become too high compared to owning, people just buy.

The current barrier is the upfront cost, but...

The property taxes I propose will drop the current value of homes through the floor. Some highly inefficient homes may actually have a zero or negative value, because they would cost too much in tax each month for anyone to want to buy. They would be scooped up by developers who can make them affordable by building enough units on that property in order to bring the tax per unit down to something people would pay.

Given that the house prices would drop so significantly, so would rent prices across the board.

There isn't actually a lack of land anywhere in Canada, even our most populated city cores haven't hit the densities that would prevent further growth.

There also isn't actually a lack of housing, as I said elsewhere there are more bedrooms in Canada than there are people. We just need policies which incentive people to use them efficiently.

And the government controlling all rentals is an option, but do you really think they're going to keep everything 100% repaired and up to date for everyone? This is going to be a pain point under both options, and I'd rather be able to take private landlord to court to get something fixed than try to take the government itself to court.