Corruption isn't prevented by regulations; its enabled by regulations. That's the flaw in your thinking. If a market's only players are really rich, there are 2 possible reasons for that: 1) the market is really good and more players should be entering or 2) the market is highly regulated which prevents more players. Guess which happens a lot more than the other in RE development?
PS Most of the people who build houses aren't very rich, just the CEO/big boss who owns the entire company is. The other 99.9% of people are middle class/blue collar.
> just the CEO/big boss who owns the entire company is. The other 99.9% of people are middle class/blue collar
Yup. I did some IT integration work for a man who owned a local construction company and was very effectively vertically integrating it. In addition to their other work he'd buy land, personally, his company would build at cost prices, and his office staff first informally and then more formally became property managers.