What you are describing is 'owning your own home can be a good long term investment' which is generally true. However, that is not really a good description of

What you are describing is 'owning your own home can be a good long term investment' which is generally true. However, that is not really a good description of the property investment the OP was referring to. The OP was describing the situation where one individual owns many properties for the sake of investment. It is that scenario it is the investor demand for properties that is driving up the property price making them unaffordable. What's worse is this situation is self-inflating. As a property investor with a handful of properties, you're in a good position to go to the bank, get a further loan to buy yet another property. That then drives up the property price, which drives up value of your existing property assets, which then allows you to get an additional loan for yet another property. This also means, people without that collateral backing have a much harder time getting their first property and when they do they pay a much higher price. That bubble will continue to grow while interest rates remains low.