its a good bet on their part (although i hate it). we obviously can't increase supply fast enough to keep up with demand in the current regulatory climate and with an existing shortage of skilled tradesmen and ratio of tradesman retiring out vs newcomers entering construction, there doesn't seem to be a feasible way to meaningfully increase supply.
Me: "should we stop allowing private equity to hold property?"
My Strawman: "nah let's build more houses to be snatched up by private equity, that way eventually maybe they'll be really nice and decide to lower prices for us someday due to the infallible balance of supply and demand that definitely hasn't been rigged to hell over the past half century. They certainly won't just continue to rig the system to benefit themselves"
>to the infallible balance of supply and demand that definitely hasn't been rigged to hell over the past half century
How has "supply and demand" been "rigged"? A lack of supply isn't evidence of "supply and demand" being "rigged", it's it working exactly as predicted, not any different than oil prices going up when there's some geopolitical event threatening supply.
The area I live in has homes that remain empty because the investor doesn't need the capital nor the space and just holds empty units for multiple years when they eventually sell (for even more than they would have sold in the past).
Housing demand will always be > 0 as long as population is growing and hence there can never be a oversupply.
Yes build more. Also regulate the oligarchs until they no longer exist.