>Considering that a median house still costs 4x yearly median salary means that not only do we live in a resource-scarce world but we will continue to for a long time.

Are housing prices, at least in the U.S. actually attached to the value of work, or they mostly affected by the banks willingness to hand out money?

Let's go another step and take work out of it completely. If houses were free, there would still be houses that are worth far more than others, simply because of proximity to other things of human interest.

Why, there still will be plenty of work to do - maintenance, for instance. But probably not enough for everyone.

That "a median house still costs 4x yearly median salary" means exactly nothing. The size of median salary is market driven, and the price of housing reflects the games banks and housing developers are playing, and thus can be arbitrarily high.

The house price is set by what buyer's are willing to pay for them. This is taking into account that in median, 4 years of that person's work-output will be required to purchase a house.

In which country is that? Last time I checked, the common way for financing a house purchase in the entire Western world is through a mortgage loan, which makes the house price tied to the size of the loan a bank is willing to give to an average person.

That's not how prices are set. Just because I can borrow $X thousand dollars on my credit doesn't mean I go ahead and purchase all the big screen tvs and computers I want. Just because I can borrow $XX thousand to purchase a car doesn't mean I'm driving around in a new mercedes. Just because I can borrow $X million to purchase a house doesn't mean I will purchase real estate which will turn my net accrued savings to 0.

When people only think short-term (what's can I afford monthly) vs. long-term (what will I pay out over the life of the loan vs. what I'm getting now) they make mistakes. These mistakes are self-inflicted but these people tend to then blame any and all others for why they can't get ahead, why the system doesn't work, why the American dream is dead :).

That's besides the point. Most young people today can't afford a house. So they take a mortgage loan to buy one, and surprisingly, houses tend to be priced just at the level of the loan an average person can get.

The situation is different from the TVs and computers and cars because those are not considered as important as your own house. Most people eventually have to move out, so they have to participate in the game. I believe we call it "inelastic demand".