In the former case you're assuming houses are for living in. That's a human perspective (and one I share) but the capitalist perspective is that houses are stored value and can be even more valuable if they're empty and well guarded. They become another sort of bitcoin, but backed by the reality of tangible property.
Depends on the jurisdiction, right? In several parts of Europe, they put RE ownership restrictions in place because they value housing as housing above value storage. In the US, not so much. Note the decline in foreign purchases of RE in Vancouver when they started taxing those transactions because people living in Vancouver were prioritized over Chinese dollars flooding the market.
