But housing only exists because of the economic incentives provided by the rent. The act of building housing takes significant resources: lots of labor, purcha

But housing only exists because of the economic incentives provided by the rent. The act of building housing takes significant resources: lots of labor, purchase of physical building materials, purchase of equipment. The investor takes on the risk that pouring money into construction efforts will ultimately be paid back in the form of valuable housing that can be sold or rented. If not for the returns provided by rent, no one would put up the investment in order to build more housing. (just to clear things up, the act of charging rent is different than what economists refer to as rent-seeking behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking)