The one good thing about this mindset is that building high density housing actually increases the value of any one specific plot of land, since the land is worth like 80% of a home's sales price in the first place nowadays. Even a low-rise apartment will increase the number of units of a single plot of land by a dozen or more, even if each individual unit is worth a tenth of the original plot, it will still come out to an overall higher value. Hundreds of times more if you build a high rise.
So if you can convince people that if you can approve the building of a high rise in any neighborhood at the place of a handful of houses, that those who sell can get double the value of their plot all at once, we can do this.
Even when people think of housing in the insane way as an investment, there are ways to spin things so that they can be convinced it's a good thing even for them. Either that, or we go the way of Japan and China, and the housing prices will collapse to only a quarter of what they are currently worth in less time than they can notice what's going on and sell them.
Well, except maybe chaos and malice.