No a law is needed that prevent foreign individuals or other entities owning lots of property for the sole purpose of renting it out. Half of London is currently owned by them. And the normale working class is barely capable of paying the rent
I agree about that law, Private Eye [1] has done a great job in making the facts about property ownership in the UK more transparent, I find it particularly abhorrent that property is being used for money laundering and tax evasion draining money away from some of the most needy in the world and then as a secondary effect making life difficult for average people in London and SE England.
Actually buying to rent, while bad, isn't the biggest issue. Buying to speculate and drive up prices to flip for a cheap buck while driving others with less capital into penury is. The only good thing that Osbourne got through was the new taxes on property transactions, I think we need more - especially a tax on transactions done in quick succession. If there was a premium on a property being sold (say 5% of the transaction price) less than 24mths after it had previously been sold I think that would kill speculation stone dead.
