[warner25]

Yes, I've lived in Hawaii and coastal California where the availability of housing does seem to be heavily impacted by very wealthy people being able to buy up second and third (multi-million dollar) homes. A lot of regular wage earners (including professionals with six-figure incomes) are priced out of the market and these homes sit empty for most of the year; the owners are so wealthy that they don't even bother to rent them out when they aren't using them. Jobs are available, but people can't afford to live near their jobs.

[beaeglebeached]

Hawaii has an abundance of underutilized land through a combination of bad zoning/regulation (anti-market violence) and civil rights violations ( Hawaiian 'homelands' which reserves much public state owned lands to only people 'of the blood of the [right] races').

The housing issues are at best partially caused by the rich; plenty of places to put a cheap tar paper shack but for whatever non-market reason you cannot.