homeownership heist rigged market

The Homeownership Heist: How Bureaucrats Rigged the Market Against You

EDITOR'S NOTES

This piece takes its cue from a Fox Business article by Amanda Macias that actually dares to finger the real villains behind America’s housing crisis: zoning laws, land-use restrictions, and destructive financial policies. I take that torch and burn a little hotter. This isn’t just about unaffordable homes — it’s about a rigged game, decades in the making, where the state’s invisible boot crushes the dream of property ownership under layers of bureaucratic sludge. You’ll learn the three systemic weapons being used to keep you locked out of the housing market — and why no amount of “affordable housing” rhetoric will solve it.

How the Homeownership Heist Rigged the Market Against You

1. Zoning: Legalized Exclusion Disguised as Order

Zoning laws are often sold to the public as tools for community planning — but don’t fall for it. In reality, they are government-issued permission slips for the privileged. By outlawing high-density or mixed-use developments, these laws wall off entire neighborhoods from growth. That’s not market-driven scarcity — it’s artificially induced exclusivity.

In a true free-market system, landowners would be free to use their property as they see fit, provided they don’t violate others’ rights. Instead, we have municipal fiefdoms dictating what you can build, where, and for whom. The result? Fewer homes, inflated prices, and a permanent class of renters.

2. Land-Use Barriers: Death by a Thousand Permits

What zoning starts, permitting and “community input” finish. Developers must navigate a Kafkaesque maze of local, state, and federal hoops — and each one comes with delays, costs, and bribes (sometimes legally called “impact fees”).

And here’s the kicker: local governments know exactly what they’re doing. Some communities deliberately strangle growth to keep "undesirables" out — a polite way of saying they don’t want poor people or minorities moving in. They won’t say it out loud, but their policies do the talking. It’s institutional gatekeeping, and the cost gets passed right down to the buyer.

3. Financial Policy: Inflation Is Theft, and the Fed Is the Thief

Even if zoning were abolished tomorrow and permitting was streamlined, we’d still have a bigger monster to slay: central banks and their addiction to easy money.

Low interest rates and manipulated credit markets created a massive asset bubble, encouraging speculation and inflating home prices. When rates inevitably rose, they slammed the door on buyers who thought they were finally ready to enter the market. Meanwhile, institutional investors — fat off that same cheap credit — snapped up properties, turning starter homes into permanent rentals.

This is how monetary socialism works: it redistributes wealth upward, creating a serf class dependent on landlords and government crumbs. Homeownership, once the cornerstone of American prosperity, has become a luxury item.

The Endgame Is Control — Not Affordability

Understand this: the bureaucratic elite don’t want more homeowners. Homeowners are harder to control. They’re more invested in their communities, less dependent on government programs, and more likely to resist authoritarian overreach.

By locking out new buyers through inflated costs and regulatory chokeholds, the state breeds a generation of renters — transient, rootless, and politically docile. That’s the plan.

What You Can Do Now

Don’t wait for the system to fix itself. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do: keep you poor, dependent, and obedient. Instead:

  • Question every "affordable housing" program — most are Trojan horses for more control.
  • Support efforts to decentralize land-use decisions and abolish zoning altogether.
  • Stay liquid, stay informed, and protect your wealth.

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Click here now — because the housing collapse is just one domino in a much bigger fall.