O_O that's fucked up. I was just giving zombie some shit. But the housing market is a fucking scam. Banks are able to print essentially arbitrary amounts of money as long as they have some plan to get it back at some point in the future.

And they can consider a house as collateral if it's worth somewhere near as much as the loan, but it's those bastards who are giving out the money which props up the house valuations to begin with.

So the person who gets the house is not the one willing to pay the most, it's the one willing to sign away their soul to paying every penny they ever earn the rest of their life in interest.