That sounds like a plan that’d work well in a country less fanatically devoted to unchecked capitalism, but would be a hard sell in the US.

There are some types of housing where the state caps profitability to the owner, but it’s almost universally in cases where the owner can’t make more than some fixed profit on sale, not on rent. This is how a lot of grants to assist low-income house purchasers work.

It’s also reasonable to think that doing so would reduce many potential builders’ interest in making more housing. Which is maybe a sign that we should have more “social housing” built by the state or nonprofit groups. But, again, lots of Americans think that’s communism and, well, they may not know what communism is but they sure don’t like it.