[rurp]

The US does have runaway inflation of financial assets, due to the policies of the Fed. Housing and stock prices have been growing at a ridiculous rate for years. The country hasn't tripled its entire productivity in the past decade, but the stock market has been acting like it.

[throwaway2037]

You raise an interesting point about Fed policies (QE) and housing prices. The UK/EU/Japan all use extensive QE. The wealthiest (per capita) economies of EU (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Nordics) are not experiencing huge increases in housing prices. Actually, France, Germany and Italy are not very good places to buy houses from an investment viewpoint. Except for center of most economically important cities, most housing in those countries grows at inflation or less. And Japan certainly does not have run away housing prices. Again, they increase only slightly more than inflation.

My point: I think housing prices in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, and UK are "out of control" because we read a lot of English-language media about the richest places in those countries where housing supply is highly constrained. As a result, it seems like housing prices are run-away. But no one is saying that about Perth, Australia, or Leeds, UK, or Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, or Ontario, Canada. Do you see my point?

Another thing to consider, most regions of France and Germany carefully plan how much housing supply is needed, then build it -- public or private. This seems to work very well to keep housing prices very stable and affordable for middle class and below.

And Japan has national and universally applied land usage and building codes. It is almost impossible to practice "NIMBY-ism" in Japan. So plenty of houses get built, even in very crowded places like Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka.

[rurp]

That's an interesting perspective with some ideas I wasn't aware of. Thanks for the thoughtful response.