California spent $17B on homelessness – it’s not working
One aspect of real estate investing is the utility of being able to control local property values.Investors looking to build generational wealth, with deep pockets, are able to drive down property values of seemingly entire cities, buy up land at a low cost, then change policies and turn low value land back into high value land.There are many ways to do this sort of real estate market manipulation, most of which rely on controlling levers of power in various levels of government.Do you think that behavior is, or should be, considered by us as plausible, probable, real, illegal,  irrational, or immoral? Do you think that it's conspiracy theory?Personally, I look at real estate market manipulation as standard fare. Of course it happens everywhere. Politicians love to direct public funding towards public works and infrastructure in areas owned by them and their friends (and voter bases). They do this legally. When too obvious and well documented, politicians using public institutions for self enrichment might be unpopular among voters (unless these same voters also benefit). I'm not angry about this, I think the system works extremely well.But, I protest against vulnerable people being weaponized for real estate investors' needs. It has happened to a greater or lesser extent. The extent to which that has occurred is extremely difficult to pin down or prove.This is what conspiracy theory does. Without too much worry about proof, take irrational behavior and patterns and construct a framework to try to explain. Does it make sense?