I'm not going to downvote you, but all of your preferred solutions are exactly the problem. Everyone who thinks more oversight and "support" will fix the problem has their own specific bogeyman responsible for higher housing prices, "bans" it, fails to actually ban it, and then all they have accomplished is that it's now at least slightly more difficult to build housing, and therefore at least slightly more expensive.

> And why would development companies build so much housing that the value started to drop?

Because they have very healthy margins currently, and would probably continue to build if their margins drop from around 20% to around 15%. At some point it would become an issue, but we haven't seen that in the areas where building is keeping up with demand or even exceeding it slightly.

> Are you sure "housing has been built in droves" is what brought the price of rent down?

Yes. What else could it possibly be?

> House prices went sky high because of investors/speculators increasing demand (and massive immigration). Maybe if the government regulated more who buys housing (home dwellers not investors) rather than regulating what gets built. Also, have more sensible immigration levels.

That, plus the many, many artificial restrictions on increasing supply, which actually are the issue. Hint: "speculators" are a tiny portion of the market and aren't leaving homes unoccupied for extended periods of time, and "massive" immigration is also a very small portion of the increased demand for housing. Also, if you want to understand the alternative to population growth, see the Rust Belt in the 1980s.

> Since developers will be less likely to build with falling prices perhaps the govt can build rent to own housing for lower income earners. Or incentivize private developers to build affordable housing.

This already happens. It's ineffective.

> High prices doesn't necessarily mean its purely a supply problem. If profit is high with low supply for developers what incentive would they have to increase supply?

Because its literally how they make money, and new participants in the market are not barred from entry?