Harry had just defeated Voldemort two months ago, and was in the process of healing the wizarding world.
The biggest issue that came up: most muggleborns and many pureblood wizards on the side of the victors could not afford to buy a house, Ron and Hermione among them.
The housing prices were through the roof, and only the rich purebloods could afford multiple houses, Harry among them.
In fact, the purebloods were using the houses as investments, buying up all within sight, and then renting them out to muggleborns at profitable prices.
No matter how expensive the property taxes became, the purebloods would just jack up rents to cover the rise. Harry didn't know what to do. Many muggleborns and poorer purebloods who won the war wanted to just seize the houses from the defeated purebloods.
But Harry knew that would be a terrible idea.
Instead, Harry came up with another solution. For roughly a quarter of the renters to pay less than the property taxes for rent. By the renters paying less than the property tax for rent, the purebloods wouldn't find housing buying so valuable, and they might stop buying up all the real estate.
Hermione was badgering Harry about it one day.
"I can barely afford the rent in the house that I am renting. Me and Ron together pay about a third of all our money on rent. It just disappears. And it goes to the Flints. I thought we defeated them."
"Maybe we should put in rent increase caps, maybe some of them negative, to force rents downwards. Until they are so cheap that they are lower than the property taxes." Harry suggested.
"We'll need the ministry to do that."
"That is our biggest hurdle. To get the ministry to side with us. This would surely deflate housing prices, and thus reduce property taxes from them, but if the renters, the muggleborns and poor purebloods are united, then we can over rule the purebloods."
Harry then offered Hermione some tea. "We can't do that to all the houses. What houses would we do that to?"
Harry answered "it can be random. We can randomly pick shires to put the negative rent increase caps on. Ensuring the rents decrease."
"The Malfoys will never allow it." Said Hermione "they own over a hundred and fifty houses alone. They have big bucks, and won't allow their only source of income to be ravaged."
Harry looked down. "Housing is just too good of a deal. Buy a house, and pass on the expenses to the renters, who are forced to rent to find a place to stay. Buying a house should be a bad deal as well. I want to make buying a house a bad deal, especially for investment."
"Harry, this practice has been going on for centuries. There is a reason the purebloods are considered the landed gentry. They own land, and make their living off of rent."
"But this time they have gone too far." Harry then passed some biscuits to Hermione.
"I think in the morning we can focus on this, but in the mean time, what have you done with the basilisk corpse in the chamber of secrets at Hogwarts?"
Hermione avoided Harry's eyes. "We cut it up and sold most of it for parts. Only the tail end. I fear that the eyes are still potent after death, and am afraid to harvest them."
Harry looked down on Hermione "that's okay, I can do that harvesting myself."
Hermione looked up "we sold the tail end for quite a lot of money, we can give your share to you..."
"Oh, that's okay Hermione. I know money is tight with you and Ron. Instead, just save up your money. I will make more than enough when I harvest the eyes of the basilisk."
Hermione got up to leave "now Harry, don't you fret too much over the rent. I think that it is a wonderful idea to have negative rent controls, to force some housing rents to fall down, but it is a dangerous game. That can make housing unprofitable to a lot of people."
"It could be a tool of ours, to have negative rent caps, to subdue housing prices. To make it more affordable for the muggleborns and the poor purebloods.
After all, if a store owner buys a fruit, and then it starts to near its expiry date, doesn't the store owner sell the fruit at a loss. The fruit is sold less than what it was bought for, like having renters that pay less than the property taxes. Houses, land, should be able to go rotten like fruit, and become losses for the owner while renting. Buying a house should be more of a gamble."
Hermione looked unsure. "Won't that cause housing markets to remain underdeveloped. Land won't be developed."
"We'll see how it goes. It would be an interesting experiment. Worst comes to worst, we have a bunch of bankrupt purebloods and a severe limitation of new housing units. I think it is worth the risk. The current situation is untenable. Housing prices will just keep on increasing to infinity with the current model."
Hermione bit her lip, but decided to let it be. She then walked out of Harry's Black townhouse, a small mansion, and into the middle of London.
Harry then got busy preparing to harvest the basilisk tomorrow. He got out a book detailing how to harvest a basilisk's eye, straight from the Black library.
He also got out goggles, and a pair of gloves and boots, as well as an over coat. Practicing putting them on, he looked at himself in the mirror. He resembled a surgeon, except his gown still had red streaks stained across it. And so he looked more like a horror film surgeon than a real doctor.
Putting the equipment away, Harry went to bed, to rest himself for what should be a busy day.