Poor people are screwed up regardless -- if rates are high, they can't afford payments, if rates are low, prices rise and they still can't afford payments. Not to mention getting downpayment.
The down payment is the hardest part. "Just barely able to make payments" people are better off when rates are high because that depresses prices resulting in a lesser dollar amount for whatever the down-payment is.
Homes come in a lot of shapes and sizes though - in Italy where I lived for a number of years, it's pretty common for people to live in a flat in a 4/6/8/whatever unit building, either as owners or renters.
Depending on where demand is, I'd expect more of that sort of thing too, if it's allowed. In the US, it is forbidden to build those kinds of homes in large areas of our cities.
Here is the graph for multistorey apartment buildings. I'm not smart enough to interpret what this means. In the big city I live in in Denmark, most new apartment buildings are luxury apartments and expensive as hell, so I don't think they are a result of rising house prices.
