The problem is Land. Western countries need Land Reform v2.0 because despite only moderate or even negative population growth - the median person cannot afford to buy Land and the Property Rights to construct a home.
Only 40% of a house price is materials and labour.
It is simple and shocking: our governments have made it illegal to build in every way except literal law.
One, just one, minor factor is the quantity of land owned by the government - it is extraordinary. It would be possible to create a construction boom overnight by selling off many of the properties owned by councils, transportation authorities.
I live in a small town of no importance surrounded by a dozen small villages. I estimate minimum of 0.20 of the properties are vacant or underutilized by an assortment of public bodies. At one point every hotel in the town was owned by the government. Just yesterday I went to work on a small public building in a tiny village of about 50 people. I'd passed it hundreds of times and never realized our hospital system owned it - has not been used in two decades. I have no idea why they own it and I don't think they do either because there are buildings of similar size in every one of those villages which have not been used. Meanwhile there is a housing crisis where poor people can't get public housing. It's right there!
Houses for a typical family in this area would typically cost 200k-300k. Retrofitting one of these 'lost' buildings would cost 50k.
Somebody needs to preform a independent survey of all properties owned by the government, then organize the poorer inhabitants and young people to make purchase requests. If a good explanation of why the property is owned cannot be provided it ought to be sold to the public or used as public housing stock.
This is not capitalism vs communism people - it's just something that makes sense.