There is definitely some value to your article - particularly the 3rd to last paragraph "Individuals."

But you can't have it both ways: You can't say that "the real estate market continues to rise" and landlords are "rent-seeking" "passive speculators" and at the same time you buy a home and it is for a "wildly overinflated sum for a pile of rapidly degrading bricks and sticks." When you buy a home - YOU become the "rent-seeking" "passive speculator" with an asset that continues to rise in value. You become your own landlord, and get to write off the interest on your mortgage.

Yes, it is a risk to buy. Yes, you need to NOT buy if the sum is wildly overinflated. Then don't buy. Yes, the big buyers have unfair advantages, but it doesn't make home owning per se a scam.