I expect them to go down as the costs of construction is covered, especially when those apartments are several years old, not go up when barely anything has changed. As I said, why does a apartment from the 70s still go up, when barely that much as been done other then basic retrofitting. and I can tell you that supply or demand has a minor impact, since there are so many apartments that are empty.

The rent is still bs. This isn't just a urban and high population density area problem, lots of rural places have rent that is way to high. Hell, even most people who live in houses don't actually own them, they're technically renting them.

But this is all not the original point. You said "if you don't like renting, buy a house in protest" which is simply not going to work because 1. Not everyone can afford a house without economically screwing up 2. Even if we did start doing that, there aren't enough houses to cause a effective protest against apartments (which are more numerous.)