> real estate owners to actually use their real estate instead of letting them rot to benefit from value appreciation

This is such an obviously false premise that I don’t understand how you even arrived at it.

Real estate is expensive to maintain. You don’t let real estate appreciate in value by letting it “rot”.

If you think the US housing crisis is due to investors letting houses “rot” then you clearly don’t understand the situation at all.

> This is such an obviously false premise that I don’t understand how you even arrived at it

I didn't arrive at anything. Its the actual reality of what happens here on the ground. You not being able to imagine something like that because of your cultural bias does not make it any less real.

> Real estate is expensive to maintain

Not as much as the value appreciation.

> If you think the US housing crisis is due to investors letting houses “rot” then you clearly don’t understand the situation at all.

Speak for yourself.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/housing-crisis-u-flipped-upsi...

> Real estate is expensive to maintain. You don’t let real estate appreciate in value by letting it “rot”.

In my neighborhood, there are at least 3 unoccupied homes within a 3 minute walk. We live in an area with accelerated entropy (the forest) and the homes are, by any useful metric, rotting. I will let you guess if in the past 10 years the value of the homes has gone up or down.

I would love if someone, squatters or not, lived in those properties. I understand things are different in different places, but where I live we have unoccupied homes that could house people. As it is, some private owner swings by once a year to throw another tarp on the roof and then fucks off, leaving an empty home to rot during a housing crisis. Yay, property rights.

Yes, maintenance costs can be a pain, but you can mitigate them by hiring a property manager or budgeting for repairs. And if you invest in the right areas, property values can appreciate over time. It's all about being a responsible investor and taking care of your properties. I know it's not the same everywhere, but in many places, real estate is a solid way to build wealth. Just think about it: you can earn rental income, get tax benefits, and potentially sell the property for a profit down the line. It's worth considering, even with the challenges you mentioned.

> use their real estate instead of letting them rot

Or not to invest into it in the first places which results in even lower supply of housing long-term.

> value appreciation

House prices in Spain haven't yet recovered to their pre 2009 levels. If adjusted by inflation they are still 35% lower so I'm not sure if its necessarily the soundest long-term investment.

> Or not to invest into it in the first places which results in even lower supply of housing long-term

Even better - the state can easily construct subsidized housing and make housing even more available. No need to rely on private profiteers for housing.

> House prices in Spain haven't yet recovered to their pre 2009 levels

A lot of things in the world have not recovered to their pre 2008 levels. That doesn't mean that profiteering is not going on.

> I'm not sure if its necessarily the soundest long-term investment.

Hopefully its not, and there will be even less investors. Housing should not be something for profiteering.

> Even better - the state can easily construct subsidized housing and make housing even more available.

You don't even need the glorious state for that. Most normally gifted people can construct their own house by themselves with some help from friends and a some hired professionals for certain things.