Real estate cost is local and there are parts of america where the prices have gone nuts. But there's a lot more where it hasn't and housing is affordable.
In many of those places salaries have been stagnant or work has dried up
So we have a weird situation where someone living in a big city with a large salary is priced out of real estate by high prices, and someone living in a smaller city with more reasonable real estate prices is priced out by a lower income
It's not universal of course, but it's a squeeze that a lot of people are feeling
We need to allowed for revealed preferences. In developers we trust.