I think the OP is considering social goods, not personal profit. Society benefits greatly from having low rents.

What a horrible, misanthropic viewpoint!

The return from a REIT is negative when property values collapse due to social breakdown.

I want long term growth on a multi decade scale, ergo, I have to take lower immediate returns to support the ecosystem which generates those returns.

Your view is myopic, not perfectly rational.

And is an example of what goes wrong with hill climbing algorithms: local gradients can lead to globally unwanted outcomes.