Greed, period. Owning an investment property is seen as easy money. When I was a kid it was essentially unheard of to own a second property for rent. Now a substantial number of people I work around own one (or more) rental properties. I know "just a guy" that owns 5 AirBNB condos he rents for $250-300 per night in the summer season, that sit vacant the rest of the year.
I have no idea why we allowed this to happen.
Sorry but that’s flat-out wrong. Owning a second property for rent has always been a thing. How would you have known, you were a kid!
Case in point: my family was middle class. My parents were a college professor (new grad from graduate school, not a big deal) and a stay-at-home mom, living in suburban America. They owned a second property for rent. I didn’t even know until 20 years later that they had owned it!
Lest you think I’m some kid who grew up in the 00’s: no, I grew up in the 60s and 70s.
Sure beats working for it.
Do you own real estate there or something? Are you aware that many people are homeless? Why is an increase in property values a good thing when it has never been more difficult and more expensive to buy a house than ever before? This increase is in large part due to the disgusting financialization of the housing market.
A documentary called ‘Push’ (2019) does a great job at laying out all the facts, while at the same time showing the impacts of these changes on working class people the world over: https://youtube.com/watch?v=qWSVG9nsRa4
For people in Europe or elsewhere you can use http://yt1s.com to download it if it’s region blocked. You can support the filmmakers and rent it too: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/pushthefilm