The only thing special about real estate investment is the massive government subsidies for it. (E.g., owner-equivalent rents are untaxed, mortgage interest is tax deductible, etc.) The best solution to that problem is simply to eliminate those tax subsidies.

This is fixable in multiple ways; start taxing imputed rent (tolerable) or stop taxing capital income (far better).

Have you seen what happened since the year started?

If you're thinking of dividends, just for 1k/mo apt you need to have 400k worth of a 3% yielding stock. 400k in a normal us housing market gets you much better than the 1k rent.

But then they would stop building them (or stop building such nice, expensive ones). I'm talking about brand-new 35th floor curtain-glass condos bought straight from the developer.