Finance and private equity gets much higher returns from its investments in technology, agribusiness, construction, the service industry, the big chain stores etc. because those subsidiary entities have vastly reduced labor costs via exploiting neoliberal government policies, both abroad (outsourcing) and domestically (labor importation).

As far as real estate, that's been highly manipulated (tax havens, money laundering etc.) as well as heavily subsidized (in favor of large owners) by the federal government (i.e. subprime bailouts, etc.).