A home is usually the single largest investment people will ever make in their life. Why wouldn't they want returns on it?
It produces a dividend of shelter for the owner. Assuming labor and material prices are fixed, the asset should be depreciating in value from wear and use which would all point to flat or lowering value.
Assuming that it must make returns, one or more of the following must be true:
* Labor price increases
* Material price increases
* Land value increases
When auto market hit supply constraints during the pandemic, the used car market got bought up and people started investing in cars to flip. There is no escaping "viewed as an investment" in a supply constrained market.
Imagine used car dealers lobbied to make new cars impossible to build/sell. Of course their prices would go up! Homeowners happily lobby and vote for policies that make it difficult to build new supply, to protect their own investments. We need to break that loop and allow the market to actually build supply and rein in prices.