People borrow the vast majority of the cost of a house to buy it, so housing prices are largely only restricted by how much banks are willing to lend and how much it costs to borrow — all of which is heavily influenced by central banks.
The NYT has a good “buy vs rent calculator” that’s worth checking out:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal...
Even though the calculator is useful, it’s important to have a really good understanding of why housing is so much more expensive today (as a percentage of avg annual income) than it was 50-60 years ago. For that I recommend a short, but extremely useful book, The Housing Trap:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal...
That is incorrect. Loose credit most definitely affects rents, as in more people can now afford to buy real-estate (houses, apartments), that reduces the supply of available places to rent (assuming no new constructions take place, for the sake of the demonstration), and generally speaking a reduced level of supply has been accompanied by higher prices, in this case higher rents.
People are not all affected by changes in housing prices immediately. If you own your home or pay below market rent you won't be affected until later. A survey asking how much people actually pay will have a built-in lag.