There have been two major real housing price jumps that I know of, and both are correlated with significant household income increases (at least nominal). Almost everything else can be factored into changes in what the "nominal house" is - from a one room cabin without plumbing to a McMansion with a three car garage.
One was the great urbanization post-world wars and the other was the great increase in dual-income households.
But if you factor things out and try to correct for as many variables as you can, housing is pretty "steady state" though the percentage of income directed toward it that's acceptable has crept up somewhat.
Shelter is, like food, one of the few real necessities and so it will be bid up to the point of pain or worse if there is a scarcity.
Fair point, in that sense it seems like some fairly fixed step-ups are possible where people culturally decide to spend more of their income on housing, but it cannot be a steady trend to profit from as an investor, because it will always have a hard cap at 100% of household income. It can't steadily beat inflation over long time scales.
One was the great urbanization post-world wars and the other was the great increase in dual-income households.
But if you factor things out and try to correct for as many variables as you can, housing is pretty "steady state" though the percentage of income directed toward it that's acceptable has crept up somewhat.
Shelter is, like food, one of the few real necessities and so it will be bid up to the point of pain or worse if there is a scarcity.