As long as the Fed keeps borrowing money into existence, relaxed zoning won't change prices much at all. It will ruin neighborhoods, to be sure - but due to the cost of building materials, the low interest rates, and the pent-up demand due to the shortage caused by the 2008 crash, housing prices are going to continue upward for some time. They literally cannot crash unless the Fed suddenly changes policy - which it does not dare to do.
I think it is going to get very complex and confusing in the next few years.
In a centrally commanded economy (like we have now) there are no real “markets”—all prices are distorted—and supply and demand get out of whack quickly and then the government will over-react and they will get out of whack in the other direction.
So—I would predict the trend will not be up or down—it will just be crazy swings.
You are WRONG. Markets wil adjust. Homes got bigger, like here in Phoenix, where developers are buying properties and either knocking down homes and building bigger new ones, or else building huge additions. That is what is driving up prices, mostly. The last thing we need is for the Fed to start interfering in the free market again, like they did in the late 1980s, in 1999-2000 and in 20004-2006, when Bernanke said he raised his Funds rate over 400% in two short years-from 1% to 5.25% for the front page state reason of “trying to slow down the economy through the housing sector to keep wages from rising”, ie take the side of buyers of labor over sellers of labor by trying to reduce demand for labor. Markets will stabilize as houses will get smaller again…..maybe then properties will get smaller……just like the candy bar goes up a little in price, then gets q little smaller. Greenspan had us on the oil standard in the 1990s, basically ….until it didn’t work anymore. politicians and the people were told that balancing the budget would drive DOWN inflation and interest rates, but Greenspan raised his funds rate to 9.75% at the end of the 1980s——which was more than double the CPI rate of inflation. ….right before Reagan’s counter-cyclical Social Security TAX INCREASE took effect that was meant to save Social Security & balance the budget. Sean Hannity talks about Reagan, but is completely ignorant about Reagan. Had Greenspan kept interest rate low, the budget would have been balanced early under George H W Bush & GOP would have had massive success. Part of the problem is in 1977, Keynesians gave the Fed a dual mandate……and the Fed had been allowed the independence to break the law at will and to redefine its terms., eg, the Fed has changed the mandate to “maintain MAXIMUM employment”, to reaching what they call “full’ employment, which is a point where demand for labor begins to exceed supply of labor at a certain price. The Fed began to interfere in the free markets in a big way that has caused a series of booms and busts since 1980 that Democrats and the press have successfully blamed on free markets, de regulation and capitalism —-and the so called Austrian school helps them. The Fed is the real reason why socialists now are taking over…..as the Fed allows prices to rise when the economy is bad and people least can afford them, but won’t allow wages to rise when the economy is booming. Thus, wages always lag prices in a big way and the same people keep getting knocked on their asses during every Fed causes recession, Gas price went down from $1.11 to $1.04 under Reagan, but Paul Krugman has gotten away with deriding the Reagan economy as an “inflationary bubble” that burst. Reagan’s 28% tax rate for the rich kicked in only in his last year, in 1987, the top tax rate was 38.5% and before that, it was 50%…and 70% under Carter. It’s easy to see how Democrats can call Reaganomics “tax cuts for the rich” when the 70% bracket went to 28% over 8 years……but the 20% bracket was cut only to 15% while Reagan also took away important middle class tax deductions. Reagan had no choice but to cut taxes because taxes and regulations are what were causing stagflation. But did Reagan cut taxes in the best way? Most Americans think NOT, because everything crashed right after Reagan left office, It’s hard to sell tax reform as being pro growth during a recession whenthe unemployment rate rises to what it was when Jimmy Carter was president and after 10,000 banks faii. The price of gold was over $1,000 going into 1980, but fell to $800 then to $500 under Reagan, then to $300 under HW Bush., rising to $400 under Clinton, then falling to $250 under W Bush. Greenspan was too tight and the result was that cars and homes kept getting BIGGER. Remember how huge the cars were around 2000, and how Ford and Chrysler took a huge hit when the Fed allowed the price of gas that fell to under $1 under Clinton when the budget got balanced……to over $2?????? cars got small again, with better mileage. people were buying Hummers in the late 1900s. And do you know WHY Alan Greenspan said he had to raise the Funds rate to 6.5% into the Reagan-Clinton budget SURPLUS (caused by Reagan raising the SS tax and Clinton raising the Medicare tax and the capital gains tax lowered again to 20%, which is where Reagan had it before his tax deform raised it to 28% in 1988 to be equal to his top marginal rate. actually, the stock market did well under HW Bush with the capital gains rate at 28%……but the economy really boomed in Clinton’s second term when he cut it to 20% again. Greenspan said he raised the fund rate to 6.5% into a budget surplus that he had insisted would drive DOWN inflation and interest rates “because the national debt was being paid off too fast”. So basically, Greenspan was a lawless criminal running the Fed and it was George W Bush and Greenspan who divided the country and destroyed the GOP….which still talks about “creative destruction” from recessions and how the capital gains tax rate from trading stock or businesses for money should be ZERO percent, but when people risk taking a job and trading WORK for money, they have to pay income and payroll tax and the business also has to pay income and payroll tax on the same work. When Reagan took office, the problem of the tax code was NOT that the rates at the top were too high, as we had good economies in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s with tax brackets above 50%. I submit that BOTH parties had no problem with the top rate being 50%…..and Reagan got reelected by an astounding landslide because everything the press said about Reagan had proved false by late 1984…..and Bush got elected in 1989 before the crash and recession on Reagan’s coat tails……bur the people voted for Bush in 1988 because of the economy and because there was peace and because we won the Cold War….not so much on the 1988 implemented Reagan tax de form…..which Democrats voted for because Reagan’s landslide made him so popular and frightened Democrats at the time…..but the people passed judgment on the Reagan tax deform when it was followed by a crash and recession…..because they thought “How could it be pro growth when it was followed by recession”……and the GOP has no answer. They mumble about “Business cycles” which only helps the socialists argue that capitalism is unstable and leads to booms and busts which gives Democrats the opportunity to demand higher taxes and spending and a bigger public sector to mitigate against damage caused by the private sector. GOP lost this battle because they weren’t listening and weren’t paying attention….because people like Sean Hannity bow run the party and endorse Roy Moores and Ben Carsons and Christine O’Donnells….and fantasies about Reagan. The top tax rate in 1980 was 70% BUT you only had to earn over $108,000 to reach the top bracket. If the 70% bracket was at $10 million, it wouldn’t have done as much harm. but the 50% bracket in 1980 was at just $45,000 and the 30% bracket was at just $15,000…..but fake Republicans like Hannity (who was against Trump in the 2016 primary, then hijacked the Trump presidency like he also hijacked the tea party for his own selfish reason……(Flynn, Sessions, Rosenstein, Priebus, Kavanuagh and Coney Barrett are HANNITY’s choices)……and there is no evidence that it was the 70% tax bracket that was the big problem……and not the fact that the overall Carter tax code that really wasn’t as bad as the Nixon tax code…..and not the steepness of the code. There were OTHER ways that Reagan could have cut and reformed taxes and what he did was unpopular in the end because it was followed by a recessions and crash that GOP cannot explain .Reagan cut the top tax rate from 70% to 28% but he raised the first dollar Social security tax on individuals and business that hit small business hard…..but there is a cap on the Social Security tax and it’s a low one. Obama-Biden kicked back payroll taxes to the underclass and blew up the deficits….but they got rejected and got away with it and now the GOP is calling for a recession or saying not to raise any taxes with deficits approaching $1.5 trillion. Obama barely raised any taxes….he cut them more than he raised them,,,,,,and Trump’s corporate income tax cut paid for itself, but he didn’t explain it welll…….and his other cuts were a JOKE, especially the chid tax credit for unwed mothers and females who divorce their husbands. Child tax credits are the opposite of supply side economics. Obama failed because he was a demand side president with a supply side Fed. Trump was much more successful on the economy but not on the optics….and communication….because Hannity also gave Trump that idiot Paul Ryan as speaker of the House…..making huge child tax credits into something that keeps getting expanded. Nobody wants to fix the deficit now. And Fed hiking rates will cause a civil war, probably,,,,,,it won’t do a thing to fix prices…..and what if the Fed starts flooding the market with BONDS right now……with so many bonds already on the market???/