[trinovantes]

I definitely think it's a cultural problem

China is probably the most extreme end of real-estate-as-an-investment mentality. Even without NIMBYism and zoning laws, everybody invests in real estate because it's impossible to make money off the stock market without insider government knowledge i.e. the government can destroy entire industries overnight like the recent private education bans. They're experimenting with increasing property taxes for each non-primary residence but only time will tell if it'll work.

Unfortunately, culture will take multiple decades/generations to change so the current generation are essentially out of luck if they are not in a high income career or have rich parents