> The housing market is a mess for probably the next 10 years as the builders try to catch up with demand.
The housing market will be a continuous mess while policy is to consider it as a major investment asset, there's no way around that, people buy houses expecting they appreciate in value so they can sell and buy their next, bigger house. That's the dream of almost anyone I know who purchases a house, politicians who implement policies which will cause houses to lose their stratospheric value (at least in major cities across the world) will commit career suicide. There's no incentive to push houses' prices down until most people are completely squeezed out of the market: people get mortgages for a house at value X, any price below X is a loss and so they will fight tooth-and-nail for keeping their assets valued above X... Yes, it's all politics but it's an issue where there's no way out of it that isn't political, some politicians will have to sacrifice themselves, those sacrifices will create a lot of pain to whomever bought an overvalued house at current prices including people going under on their mortgage, selling at a loss, and quite a few will go into financial duress because of it.
Societies need a different housing strategy and policies to support it, the current one where housing is both a major investment asset as well as basic necessity does not work.