morph, I agree with the "floodgate" comment but I do feel that...

morph, I agree with the "floodgate" comment but I do feel that there ought to be restrictions (many ways of doing that) on investment on land and houses. Low wage earners cannot hope to compete with the huge sharks. They just can't, full stop. Lots can be done also in terms of land been used for industrial and heavy industrial purposes which often takes prime real estate... but that's another issue. I was involved in a housing debate arranged by the ALP many years ago ('80s) and an expert on the field said that there's no real need for aussies not to have quarter acre lots. They can certainly be accommodated within a logical framework of land distribution, supported by logical legislation. The size of the land didn't matter; rather, it was the size of the house that did. Can't remember the arguments he used but he met all opposition to his view with good arguments. He had won the day.
But he was a "lefty" through-and-through (whatever the term means nowdays) and his view was also that land should be as close to free as possible and the cost of the building of the houses regulated so that investors, unscrupulous middlemen, agents and speculators would be left out of the whole enterprise.
The economy, he argued would be far better off if everyone owned a house into which they would put a thousand and one products: that would spark off an economic movement and would make the country richer. All sorts of benefits derive from the owning of a house: security, comfort, confidence, purchasing power, less expenditure in welfare, etc, etc.
I remember walking out of that debate feeling good but knowing that it was just another "lefty dream!" The sharks are too numerous!