What you're missing here is that housing is only a good investment because it's in such short supply. If plenty of $250K houses were available, they wouldn't be

What you're missing here is that housing is only a good investment because it's in such short supply. If plenty of $250K houses were available, they wouldn't be doubling in price every few years, and "sitting on them" and eating the maintenance costs would just lose money compared to other investments.