The difference is that housing is a finite, in fact scarce, requirement for life. You could also say that Nestle buying up all the water supplies is simply where they’re choosing to invest. Sure, but it’s still wrong.

It’s an abuse of capitalism to create captive markets for basic necessities where people have no real choice but to purchase your goods. Adam Smith knew this.

Now you could say, “just move”, but the fact is that there is not sufficient affordable housing available in this country to meet demand. And a good portion of that is held by investors.