Because it is pro-social behavior. Same as voting for higher taxes on yourself personally.
In fact, lowering property values is often good for people. It lowers property taxes (well... not in california since they never recompute) and it lowers the price of comps so if you move and buy another house it is largely a wash.
Yes, we've created a system where a ton of people are highly dependent on inflated housing prices and this leads to anti-social policy support so they can keep their wealth. This is a tough nut to crack because people are greedy. But this approach isn't sustainable.
Houses are not just expensive because people are greedy. Nice places are limited, and therefore they will always be expensive. And it is not "greedy" to want to live in a nice place.
That there is a host of other issues in the system is without question.
"Nice places are limited, and will always be expensive."
But the thing is, housing isn't about 'nice places always being expensive' it's about reasonable places skyrocketing in value do the a lack of new or additional housing to accommodate a growing population.
It seems the "reasonable places" are also nice, otherwise people wouldn't be willing to pay so much for them. It's also not the fault of the people living there if the population is growing. Why should they have to accommodate the growing population?
Nice places are also artificially limited by policy supported by people who don't want to see their more-exclusive control over those nice places diminished.
In fact, lowering property values is often good for people. It lowers property taxes (well... not in california since they never recompute) and it lowers the price of comps so if you move and buy another house it is largely a wash.
Yes, we've created a system where a ton of people are highly dependent on inflated housing prices and this leads to anti-social policy support so they can keep their wealth. This is a tough nut to crack because people are greedy. But this approach isn't sustainable.