I didn’t say that. Most of the middle class wealth arose from real estate, however Im saying that the “ultra rich” benefit a lot more from real estate than people you describe. But building several housing complex for 10s of millions each absolutely nets you more that a studio apparent in some basement.
Also, what Im saying overall here, regular people would get more real estate in it were not so profitable. Government housing projects that lower market rents are then terrible for … ‘decently wealthy’, so none of that?
Also, its not that the usual case is that a landlords would be less ‘wealthy’ than the tenants they have. So however you look at it, it’s a market where your goal is to up the rent as much as possible (“it wasn’t me, it’s the market, tho my costs didn’t even change, lul”) over people less fortunate than you that usually don’t have another choice.
And no, I don’t understand how financial expenses would be cost of ownership. Sure, you can’t do it or it doesn’t make sense not to take a loan, but that’s financial stuff, not ownership stuff, the same way as you job isn’t the cost of ownership for a house. It might be in your case, ofc, but there are steps in between.