This is about interest rates.
100% of the “increase in value” is based on the decline in interest rates. It’s the same process that makes a bond appreciate in value.
When rates go low, it makes the monthly payment of ownership more affordable.
We have been in the longest downtrend in US history for interest rates. They have been in a decline pattern since 1982 with only one major up move, 1994 when 10 yr rates got as high as 8% when Greenspan raised rates 8 times that year. 38 yrs of declining rates... one day, we’ll start the march the other direction.
Housing prices in 1953 were relatively equal to where they’d been in peak economy of 1890.
I think it is several things:
1. Interest rates (people buy a payment, not a price)
2. Migration out of the cities. And that is a LOT of people, compared to the available real estate in the areas they are moving to.
3. inflation. See my post above this one regarding that.
Rates have been low for a long time.
In my part of Florida values are going up because sane people are leaving democrat hellhole cities. I own two houses and I get five or six offers a month EVEN though neither of my homes is for sale or listed or anything...