I live in a US region with essentially no population growth, slow job and wage growth, and a lot of vacant buildings and land.

Since the financial crisis ended, real estate price records are broken every year and see neighborhoods that have double through quadrupled in the past 15 years.

At the same time new apartments have gone up, big property companies have formed and consolidated a lot of multi-unit buildings previously owned by small time owners.

I know interest rates, especially on mortgages, were historically low which caused some inflation. But it honestly baffles me how it could be anything but a bubble.

Wait, I don't get this. Do I get paid to take out a mortgage?

It's an extreme expansionary policy designed to keep the economy afloat by making people pay money to keep it in banks. Normally this is done by dropping interest rates below inflation; this is the nuclear option for economies. The fact that they are still stuck on this is not a good sign for what may happen to Europe next recession.

This is one of the inherent limitations of a shared currency: Greece needs expansion; Germany needs contraction. Help one; harm the other. It's very difficult to do the kind of things America (or most other nations) can do with Europe for this reason.

The rate at which the bank gets money from the central bank is negative, and your local bank adds on 1.5 to that (for a variable) rate from what i remember, so overall the rate was 0.8% I think.

So you don't get paid, but you do get subsidized.