Why does it matter that a house survive for 500 years, though? Seriously, I'm not going to live that long. None of my immediate descendants will either. Odds are good it'd be owned by someone else before I even die, let alone by anyone even tangentially related to me 500 years in the future. And odds are also good it'd be torn up well before then or fall into decay even if it was built to last. How many cities have been on an upward trajectory for the past 500 years? And how many old buildings have been torn down to be replaced with something bigger and taller, regardless of the state of the old building?

Give people a choice between two houses, one that will last their full lifetime and then some, and another that costs double and that will last 500 years, almost everyone is rationally going to pick the former option. There simply isn't much present-day utility in over-building to such an extent.

And keep in mind, there are plenty of all-stone buildings that have collapsed from earthquakes and other natural disasters, killing many people, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2016_Central_Italy_eart... . A lot of construction methodologies that last 500 years only do so in some environments. Against a lot of common risks, a modern building constructed of dimensional lumber is better.

And anyway, I still think the better comparison is between the average building in different time periods, not the best buildings (which are basically just outliers).