Yes, they do this even if the price only goes up 3-4x, it's not needed for the price to increase thousandfold.

Also, this doesn't really apply to housing.

I fully agree, thousandfold price increases would suggest that processes that control prices in free market system had become unstable. In such cases I'd agree with state intervention. Fortunately it doesn't happen that often.

> Also, this doesn't really apply to housing. Correct, it's more complex there and some of the reasons are mentioned in the article.

And Berlin needed rent control exactly because this didn't happen.