Very few of my peers <30 yrs old (or older) are able to afford homes.
* a loan with a long enough lifetime (so the payments are feasible) * a loan with a low enough interest rate (so the increased value of your home equity isn't overtaken by the amount you give to the bank) * some nice government subsidies in the form of the mortgage interest deduction
then at pretty much any point over the life of the loan you can sell the property and come out ahead, even if you never finished paying it off. Of course, if the crucial assumption that home prices always go up turns out to be faulty, anyone who bet on this strategy might be left with a home that's worth less than a loan they can't afford.
Disclaimer: I think I understand the concepts here but I'm no expert. Apologies if my choice of words and/or logic are completely wrong.
But this only helps people who own multiple houses, or don't plan to live in one. If you need a house, the gain you get from selling your existing house after appreciation is necessarily offset by the loss you take buying an appreciated replacement house.
You can't get rich, or benefit at all, from a nominal appreciation in the "price" of something you can't sell.
It's not as dire as you make out. That said, it's not as awesome as a lot of people seem to think.
There are so many cheaper ways to make an extra $3k per year. You could, for instance, spend 5 hours a week baby sitting for $12/hour.
Again, this doesn't help people who are trying to buy for the first time.