I agree on most points, except one. I don’t see how laws could be tightened to “bad” speculation without also negatively affecting others. How do we legally separate the speculators from the poor soul who bought a house in January, is diagnosed with cancer in April and sold in the summer for a profit ? Or the guy who gets a job transfer notice out of the blue, three days after closing escrow, in a rising market. Both of these “lucky” homebuyers would have effectively flipped for a profit during the heyday of 2003-2004.
In the end, I think we agree that the market participants (traditional buyers) and people with vested interests (neighbors) ultimately will win out over the speculators and irrational buyer behavior.
