>If it's affordable, then the value isn't going up and it's a poor investment. Here in Tokyo, values generally do not go up, yet there are still plenty of land

>If it's affordable, then the value isn't going up and it's a poor investment. Here in Tokyo, values generally do not go up, yet there are still plenty of landlords, who seem to use housing as an investment of sorts. Some landlords seem to be people who simply have owned a property a long time and want to rent it out in case they want to return to that house later (this happens when someone gets transferred somewhere by their employer). But the big apartment buildings are owned by large real estate corporations. I don't work in that industry, but I imagine they're making money simply on volume. Even though the building value falls to zero over the course of 40 or 50 years, it does seem to work out, and there are constantly new apartment buildings being constructed.