There's a few "valid" reasons why homes get more expensive over time that you cannot attribute to malice or greed.
Population growth whilst land does not grow, homes being more advanced, and the 1950s not being a very reasonable comparison. The single breadwinner rich middle class was a blip in history, a temporary post-WW2 effect.
But still if you account for all of that, something is surely off. And as so many countries face this problem, I'm quite sure that you can't solve it with the simple stroke of a pen.
I don't think it's useful to say "a house is for living". Most home owners do use their house to live in, the value appreciation is a side effect of a market that fails to address supply.
Heavy government intervention into private rent markets and project construction so far tend to have the opposite effect. Landlords and development companies simply pull out.
One often suggested approach is to build lots of very high rise apartment towers. Even then I'd expect a price decrease of say 30% only, for a type of living most will not be very fond of. It's a big cultural change. You'll still pay quite a lot, for something that sucks.
My less practical idea is about geographic distribution. Western Europe as an example, some parts incredibly dense. Where we think the "solution" is to endlessly make them even more dense. Whilst Eastern Europe is 80% empty.
I know, there's reasons for it, but when you think about it this way, you'll understand why there's no solution to our current problem. Because we're not solving a problem, we're increasing the size of the problem. I would advocate for fresh thinking in redistributing population pressure.
Population growth whilst land does not grow, homes being more advanced, and the 1950s not being a very reasonable comparison. The single breadwinner rich middle class was a blip in history, a temporary post-WW2 effect.
But still if you account for all of that, something is surely off. And as so many countries face this problem, I'm quite sure that you can't solve it with the simple stroke of a pen.
I don't think it's useful to say "a house is for living". Most home owners do use their house to live in, the value appreciation is a side effect of a market that fails to address supply.
Heavy government intervention into private rent markets and project construction so far tend to have the opposite effect. Landlords and development companies simply pull out.
One often suggested approach is to build lots of very high rise apartment towers. Even then I'd expect a price decrease of say 30% only, for a type of living most will not be very fond of. It's a big cultural change. You'll still pay quite a lot, for something that sucks.
My less practical idea is about geographic distribution. Western Europe as an example, some parts incredibly dense. Where we think the "solution" is to endlessly make them even more dense. Whilst Eastern Europe is 80% empty.
I know, there's reasons for it, but when you think about it this way, you'll understand why there's no solution to our current problem. Because we're not solving a problem, we're increasing the size of the problem. I would advocate for fresh thinking in redistributing population pressure.