If something is profitable, someone would do it in a free market. Even if selling houses is more profitable than renting, according to you renting is still more profitable than, for example, agriculture. How come there is not a flood of land owners selling their low profit land in Badajoz to buy houses in Madrid and Barcelona and double their income? How there are not hundreds of companies buying to rent, a safe and very profitable business, but there are hundreds of companies going bankrupt every year. For example, why start a car workshop when I could just buy three or four houses, rent them and live without working?

I'll tell you why: because renting is not a risk free and safe business, but a tight one. You can have renters that doesn't pay for a couple of years. Your tenants can cause damages to your property. Your property lose value if you don't invest in it. Lots of things can go south that wipe your ROI, and you can't do nothing to fix it. Sure, if you get a long term tenant that pays every 1st day of the month and takes good care of the house, it's a wonderful business, but that is not the norm.

> Everyone needs housing. It's not something you can simply opt out of.

Same thing I need food or clothing. And I have plenty of both, cheaply, on a wide variety and quality, because politicians don't meddle with them causing artificial shortages.

> there are better options than trusting the benevolence of every single landlord not to charge as much rent as they can get away with.

That's a free market. Every single one of us charges as much as we can get away with it. And pay as less as we can get away with it. If I don't have a higher wage is just because I'm selling my work to the best paying company. In turn, they are paying my salary because they couldn't find anyone that charges less than me for the same work.

> If it's a housing shortage, that's a supply problem. But according to other comments from people claiming to know the situation in Spain, there is no lack of housing supply (i.e. there are plenty of houses for sale and many empty houses for rent) so it seems to be a problem of pricing.

That makes no economical sense. There are cities (Madrid or Barcelona, surely others) where you can put a house for rent at any price, and it will get rented in hours. That's a supply problem! A problem of pricing would be hundreds of properties for rent at such prices that nobody rent them for months or years. There is a lack or supply _for rent_, and I don't care what other "informed" comments say unless they come with data.

> It's more profitable to sell (or rent out) a highly priced property even if it means you'll sit on it for a longer time, as long as you can afford the initial investment and maintenance

What? No, it's not. Each year without renting a house that you bought for, say, 300,000€ to rent for 1,000€/month is a loss of 12,000€ (4%). If you put that same 300,000€ in stocks or some kind of safe investment like public or private bonds, you would get at least 2% interest/dividend _and your invested money_ back. Instead you have inmovilized money that is producing zero (pre tax, depretiation and amortization). You should familiarize with this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

You basically are saying that I can buy stocks without dividend, because I'm just going to sell it at a higher prize in the future _guaranteed_. That might happen or not.