But what is the market really good at optimising for? Given the current excess of global capital, the market’s most pressing task is finding new investment opportunities. From the point of view of the market, housing is primarily an asset and only secondarily a place to live — exchange value takes priority over use value.20 Buying a house is considered an uncontroversial investment vehicle: you rent it out to pay the mortgage, then flip it to reap that appreciation when you need liquidity again.
