[brazzy]

Except they cannot increase rents when there is enough supply for a market to actually work.

[testing22321]

The market will remain irrational longer than…

Of course they can when they own them all. See De Beers diamonds. Buy them all, keep the price artificially high.

[larsiusprime]

Diamond prices are famously crashing now due to artificial lab made diamonds (increased supply)

[nroets]

The De Beers cartel was able to avoid anti trust scrutiny because the best reserves are outside (Africa/Canada/Russia) of the most lucrative markets (US/Europe/Asia).

Corporations control only a small faction of housing supply.

[exabrial]

They can only do that (own them all) with government assistance. See De Beers diamonds, who leveraged the legal system to create a monopoly.

The solution is to build more housing and get the government out of the picture.

[matkoniecz]

Insanely stupid restrictions on residential construction make it easier.