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That to one side, we need to wean the country off rent-seeking behaviours and onto more productive means of making money.
The country? There are around 1.8m private landlords. It gets a lot of press, but it isn't something that everyone does.
But yes, I get the point - it would be better if the money flowing around the private rental market was put in to something 'better' (Bitcoin?!). Local companies for the sake of localness however I suspect are long way down on the average investors list of stuff to chuck money at - we have access to the internet, we are capable finding out what is likely or not to provide a return at a risk acceptable to the average joe, and it's usually composite stuff that spreads the risk around.
(I suspect a lot of the stuff that the posho MPs rent out is not stuff they would sell if they could not rent them out profitably - they would simply hoard it and it would become non productive)
Howard-
Rent-seeking is not confined to the property rental market, it's an economic behaviour that seeks to increase wealth of the individual/organisation performing said behaviour/action without creating new wealth.
Local in these terms means to the economic area you are within, which is currently the EU but will soon be England and Wales.
At the small end I rent my garage, I would like to buy it but the garage company won't sell it because they get £1,200/year from me for doing absolutely fuck all. There's absolutely no motivation for them to sell unless a) they have a sudden urgent need for a lot of capital or b) rental income becomes undesirable due to (say) tax.
Dammit
I imagine that there would be a correction, but there will be a correction when the pound drops below the Euro and we have food rationing and no jobs.
That to one side, we need to wean the country off rent-seeking behaviours and onto more productive means of making money.
i.e. if I have 50k I should invest it in a local company, or some local companies, or start my own little company rather than getting three BTL's and charging a fortune in rent.
Rent-seeking behaviour should be taxed heavily wherever it appears, making it unattractive.
The problem of course is that most MP's are landlords, and most entrenched money has a lot of property.