@Singlecurrency: Let me flip it for the perspective of those who were born too young to partake in the policy-driven real estate price run-up that's occurred: "It is one thing for various levels of government and government agencies to have a moderate hand in regulating the market. It is quite another for these entities to make never-ending price increases the focus of so much of their policy and tax incentive thinking."

My description pretty much describes what's happened this entire century so far. Yours describes something that has barely happened yet.

This high priced market has been engineered. It is not the result of a "free market" unless you ignore the never ending of favorable tax policies, government guarantees for real estate investing that doesn't exist in other sectors, etc. 

No one is entitled to own. No one is entitled to profit from real estate. The pendulum has swung too far towards high prices, making the long-term down sides too big to ignore. And so here we are.