I question the greed thing. If you look at the most expensive places to live in America, such as Manhattan, San Francisco, housing prices are what they are based on supply and demand. With some zoning laws and limited land to build in such places thrown in. Yet the wealthiest in places such as the Bay Area or New York want to live in the most exclusive areas, and their behavior pushes prices up.
And then, comparing housing prices to what someone earning minimum wage earns, then, you see that imbalance. However, it’s not really due to greed that lower income people can’t afford the nice parts of SF or Manhattan, is it??
Or look at a different way, we all compete in housing markets wherever we live.
My house is worth over $500K. I bought it for $169K years ago. Am I greedy to sell it for $520K and make a big profit on paper, if I choose to sell now? After all, if I sell and need to buy another place to live, I will need the equity out of my current property to afford the next one.
First, hearkening back to Econ...Whatever, we learned about market makers and market takers. There are so many parties on both the supply and demand side no one person controls the market. They take what the market gives them, period. Sometimes good, sometimes not.
So, just as in the petroleum business, you're stuck with what the market gives for better or worse. We haven't seen a lot of posters complaining about the price of crude, have we?
Used to be that a rental house was a solid if unexciting way to invest. Now (especially in those cities with high housing prices) it's a high risk investment.
In the city of Seattle, for example, evictions take months and are costly. There's an office of consumer protection that regulates everything from allowable deposits to 'discrimination.'
For example, landlords are not allowed to take criminal records into account unless they can prove it has a direct bearing on tenancy. They will be judged, of course, with perfect hindsight. No one knows what kind of liability this creates for owners. Then there's a requirement to pay for moving costs of tenants in many cases.
And the latest...The Seattle City Council requires that owners accept the first "qualified" applicant. Nobody knows what that means, except that it will be administered by a bureaucracy hostile to owners.
Those willing to pronounce judgment upon the investments of others should be willing to put money where their mouth is...Or STFU.