House prices will never fall significantly. As soon as a house enters the market at anything below the going rate it's bought by a landlord or a rental company. This will keep house prices high forever.
Housing is a market like any other. The going rate can change.
Landlord in the city here - land speculators and landlords own an outsized amount of housing here. Significant churn is caused by blighted house reclaimation by the city, but that's one of the few driving forces allowing residents to have access to housing stock - and by the time it's blighted, there's a good chance it's not livable without significant investment.
Blight is generated because many properties/locations provide such a low rental income low that non-resident purchasers just buy the land as speculation, often doing no maintenance until the house is no longer livable.
While the previous comment isn't as hard of a truth as it implies, large capital owners rather than those who would reside in a home are increasingly the main purchasers of property, at least in Detroit.
The same reason the used car lots don't own all the rust free classics in California, an exceptionally asinine regulatory environment that would put them on the hook for an obscene amount of back taxes.
This is what we saw with QE in 2008, and what we're seeing now. Asset prices are skyrocketing, while the price of bread is staying more or less stable.
The effects of inflation are somewhat localized at first and the movement of money in the economy matters significantly in terms of the purchasing power of that money for various groups over time.
However, they are supposed to maintain a budget and the CARES act alone cost over 2 trillion dollars so they finance deficits by selling US treasury securities. If you look at the outstanding debt, it has grown by about 3.6 trillion dollars worth of outstanding treasury securities from january to august [0]. If you look at the federal reserves asset sheet trends [1], you'll see it grown by up about 3 trillion since january [1] with over 2/3 of that buying those same US treasury securities our government sells to finance the deficit [2].
My point is that if congress had simply decided to pay for all deficits including those direct and indirect payments to citizens this year with printed money and the federal reserve did nothing, we would be basically in the exact same position. Congress is spending to put cash in citizens pockets and the federal reserve is buying up most of the treasury securities that congress is selling to fund that.
[0]: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm
[1]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
[2]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm
The fed bought a bunch of crap bonds from the market at above market value (As prior to their involvement, those bonds were tanking), and the people who sold them those bonds then went on to buy treasures and securities.
It socialized the risk, and privatized the profits.
Reserve Bank credit: 6,968,229
U.S. Treasury securities: 4,391,505
Mortgage-backed securities: 1,949,547
High income is like delta-v, it's great. But you're still near the ground, and you're competing against people already in high orbit.
The beneficiaries of the housing explosion have equity which they can parlay into more ownership, whether for themselves as investments or their children.
Record low interest rates help prices by letting people lever up (letting them spend their lifetime earnings now) to compete but of course also bids up prices, again to the benefit of existing homeowners.
This is reflected in the fact that (for example) in the U.K over 1/3 of first time buyers did it by getting money from their parents: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/first-time-buyers-relying...
Furthermore, in the UK, Australia and NZ (less familiar with the US or Canada) it seems the government will move heaven and earth to prop up housing.
High immigration rates and supply restriction have not been helping.
I'm not as convinced as GP that the situation can last "forever", but I could see it lasting for another couple of decades. A true housing collapse would probably be a phyrric victory for the young.