Investors are banking on the idea in part that the governments will make it hard for others to compete with them by restricting new housing. Not a super bad bet

Investors are banking on the idea in part that the governments will make it hard for others to compete with them by restricting new housing. Not a super bad bet. At least in the bay area the layer of regulations and hoop jumping is very very daunting. Plenty of "funny" stories - all of which mean that it's very very very hard to build new housing at any meaningful scale for reasonable costs. Boston likely has many of the same factors. Investors want barriers to competition - and governments and taxpayers provide it.