It's just business

I think the difference with the first 5 is that a manufacturer sets the price, scalpers purchase it by that price and sells it at a much higher one.

The house price just fluctuates continuously and when the "investor" or "scalper" purchases it, it was available at that price for everyone (or did he purchase it from another scalper?)

Yes, the problem is the high prices of houses, but to reduce it we need to either increase supply (encourage building more, perhaps changing zoning laws to allow more homes etc) or reduce demand (increase interest rates (that though make it harder for regular people), restricting corporations from purchases, banning Airbnb (yes, they drive prices up, and if you use them, you are contributing to it), penalizing if unit is not occupied (though enforcement of this will be hard), or banning foreign investors.

Buying up enough of something so that you're one of the only names in town is a "smart business move", because then you can start to charge whatever prices you want. Totally not scalping. You see it in private healthcare, food, newsmedia, streaming, telecom.

I'm actually a huge fan of scalping and hope it happens more. Here's why: many of your more dim-witted, more or less middle-class "free market" bros will gladly tell you that the value of a good is set by supply and demand. Hospital care is so expensive because there are comparatively few doctors, MRI machines, etc. in comparison with the entire population. Houses are so expensive because everyone wants a house and it's an appreciable asset. I've seen these people my entire life. They'll decry socialism and make the age old joke that "socialism is when no potato." But the second a PS5 gets a street price of 700 bucks, suddenly they become walking "Homer Simpson fading into the hedge and coming back out wearing a different outfit" memes. They'll say things like "scalping should be illegal" or "the government should step in to make sure that the actual consumers who want one can get one - nobody should be allowed to buy 500 of them and just sit on them forever." Suddenly, market economics produces a state of inequality that doesn't directly benefit them, and the guiding hand of the government should be used to ensure equitable distribution of resources. Not that they'd ever reflect on this in any way or consider how their personal experiences indicates a larger set of structural problems with the economic systems that produce such a state of affairs.

I feel like North America could fix its housing issue by simply abolishing the single family housing zones

I don’t know why this is controversial. It’s just a fact at this point.

We'll you see if you're making people pay extra for their human rights that's called investing. Not puny recreational items.

This is a joke. But it is a pattern I noticed in this sample.

yeah someone needs to stop the Chinese from buying up residential property everywhere

I flip items all the time, but they are items that very few people want, so I'm providing a service to the few people who need the things that I sell. If anybody needs any vintage vacuum tubes, I have several hundred. I have a Pentium III laptop. Good luck finding these things out in the wild if you're looking for them.

They're all investments. Most of these products are specifically setup by artificial over demand and under production to be profitable, basically exploiting the fact that there are 8 BILLION humans and a small group have most of the money.

Shit like this wouldn't work in a stable global economic system that wasn't headed for collapse on a bullet train

its called rent seeking for a reason

Just an inherent consequence of capitalism. If people are willing to pay much more than the price that was set by the manufacturer, it's their loss and a business opportunity for third parties.

Is Cirno in high demand?

Based

A scalper too. 🤌

So either all are wrong or all are right. Which is it? Cuz I know people who complain about house flippers, but are totally willing to scalp products like these.

My opinions nobody asked for:

I really don't care if people want to scalp non-essential goods tbh. It sucks but my life intersects with those items so seldom that it doesn't impact me. I make a slight exception for things like electronics (i.e. GPUs a few years ago) because some peoples' livelihoods are directly tied to being able to access those goods.

If you try to flip houses for profit, you're neither a scalper nor an investor. You're a sociopath at best and a murderer at worst

No one is buying new homes and then turning around and selling them. They would lose their ass. They don't have a fixed price. Builders are selling each and every one for every dollar they can. Investors are typically buying distressed properties that the seller can't sell and the buyer can't buy in it's current state, repairing it and only then reselling it. If they didn't those sellers would just be stuck in those broken down homes forever.

The home investor pays pretty harsh taxes for flipping a house less than a year. Unless the scalper actually puts their own money into it to improve the home, the taxes alone would make the investment bad.

Basically there is usually some sort of value add an investor does to maximize profits.

Scalpers trying to justify scalping. Nope. Please find something better to do with your time.

Hardly the same comparison. People buy houses when there isn't demand and sell when there is.