[cheald]

Sure, there are lots of factors in play. Property taxes vary by county and are difficult to make broad statements about (in my county, annual increases are capped so my property taxes are not assessed based on the retail value of the property, for example). Rates examples were literally just my first Google results to illustrate via some napkin math that the loan rate has a substantial effect on monthly payment that isn't necessarily captured in the list price.

The temptation when we read stats like "the real price has doubled in 20 years" is to interpret it as "the real payment per comparable unit has doubled", when no such thing is true.

I don't know what your market is like, but mine has had a lot of new townhome development in the 1-2k sq ft range. The idea that we're only building 4k sq ft behemoths just isn't true in my part of the country, at least.