The system isn't toxic. On occasions, some people's behaviour may be toxic, but that is on them. You always have a choice about how you behave.
The system is not ideal, but SE are doing the best they can with what's available. They introduced the demolition timer to prevent house hoarding but, as you've already been advised OP, that's turned off right now because of Covid. So on high population worlds, there is likely to be a slowdown on available houses.
Generally speaking, there is enough housing available unless you live on a very popular server. I recently repurchased a small house, having not had one for a while; there was so much availability that I was able to walk up and buy it, no timer. And I'm on Omega, one of the larger EU servers. SE have also said they are looking at other improvements such as expanding apartments.
You have a few alternatives, OP. You can wait until the housing demolition is back in swing. You can move server to one with better availability. You can hope SE does expand apartments to fit your requirements.