> Prices are set by supply and demand, not by whether the seller has decided to be evil or not that day.

Whether and to what extent the sellers in the market have decided to be evil is, in fact, an aspect of "supply", which is simply the function mapping the terms of sale (in simplest terms, price) to the number of units sellers are willing to sell on those terms.

This is true even under perfect rationality, since deciding to be evil is just a way of describing someone whose utility function gives high positive value to something that the person making the description sees as a source of strongly negative value.

Restrictions from government are supposed to be reflections of the voters will.

This huge price-fixing case might give a clue to the seeming upset in your puritanical conception of "supply and demand"

I think the "build more" stuff rings very hollow. I live in the sun belt where no politician has ever said no to a developer, and I assure you that rents and home prices are broadly unaffordable here too, though perhaps less so than elsewhere.

Yeah that’s like saying a free market works great with perfect transparency. That’s true and also does not reflect reality of a non academic model