Certainly the innovations mentioned are part of the issue for most markets, but for some markets there are other impprtant factors:
* The flood of expat money (Vancouver)
* Supply constraints due to geography and/or Nimbyism coupled with net in migration (Bay area)
* Builder hesitation plus in migration (Front range of Colorado)
Hard to paint one picture. However, making mortgages easier to get has a broad effect on demand, which will definitely shift the curve.
That unpaid tax flows straight back into the housing market.
> The flood of expat money (foreign investment)
these two statements are contradictory
It depends on what you understand when OP says "all real estate is local", I assume that it's the thing itself and its customers. It can be seen as inexact because yes, the investors often are not and that is that second statement, but we all know what OP meant, so no need to start nitpicking over nothing. I see no merit in arguing over words whose meaning everybody understands just for the sake of it.
So no - this real estate is not local. It happens to have a physical location, but when you understand how the money associated with it does it best to avoid spreading out into the surroundings, it might as well be built on an uninhabited atoll in the Pacific.
At the low end in London the money went to landlords who bought large portfolios with the financial assistance of buy-to-let loans and tax breaks.
The tax breaks are being removed, and interest rates are drifting upwards. This is killing casual landlords, but isn't a problem for the sharks and the rabbit hutch 10-gig-economy-workers-in-a-room slumlords.