[TheOtherHobbes]

But market-based economics doesn't distinguish between those cases. If it's more immediately profitable to speculate, then speculation happens. If it's more immediately profitable to build apartments for the super-rich then apartments for the super-rich will be built. (And there will probably be a bubble in which the apartments remain empty "for investment", followed by a price crash, as numerous cities have discovered.)

What will not happen is affordable housing for the majority of the population.

Simplistic monetary analyses are incredibly bad at estimating social value, and even worse at maximising the returns from network effects that become possible when you allow for the benefits of wider wealth distribution.