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I currently don't own, and I can't either, because I don't want to be stuck in one place for too long. If the prices where lower, where I could reliably buy, live for some years then sell again, without a huge amount of hassle, and not costing at least one million to buy some shitty apartment, then that'd be preferably.

And besides just having "real estate investors" slurping up all housing, people could own one house then rent out parts of it, or a collection of people could own their apartment building together, there are many other ways to make housing work that doesn't involve huge companies owning large parts of the market. A little bit of nuance goes a long way.

> people could own one house then rent out parts of it

It's already a thing, called house hacking. Tough luck if you're a couple that wants a complete unit instead of a room in someone else's house.

> a collection of people could own their apartment building together

That's called a co-op or a condo (the difference is a bit fuzzy to me). This still involves ownership and upkeep of an asset, which many people prefer not to do.

> huge companies owning large parts of the market

Make it publicly-owned, for all I care. Or let it be individual landlords. Or forbid a single company from owning more than 5% of the stock in a city. As long as it's market rate and abundant and competitive, it literally does not matter. More houses = cheaper housing.

> yet the largest landlords in the US was found to engage in price-fixing and artificially raising rents

Your own link shows that we know this happened because there was a Justice Department investigation about the practice. How can you say enforcement isn't happening.