What's happening in the housing market right now is the result of the free market.

Market forces made housing expensive at a faster pace than regulatory changes. There are simply many more people now in their 25s-35s than there were 40 years ago, more dual-income households, and more costs (i.e., college) associated with landing the high-paying jobs than there were 40 years ago when you could get a 6-figure job with full health benefits and a pension at a factory without being able to read or write.

> What's happening in the housing market right now is the result of the free market.

Absolutely not. A fundamental requirement for a free market is to avoid barriers of entry to competition as much as possible. In the real estate market there are way too many barriers of entry to be considered even remotely free:

- Zoning laws

- Construction permits

- Licenses (realtor, construction, architects...)

- All kinds of taxes

So no, real estate has never been a free market. The blame for today's problems lies with governments' intervention and regulation.

Edit: formatting

No it absolutely isn’t. Developers are not being allowed to construct high density housing. One of the last bits of local politics I heard before moving away from my home town was some drama about a developer not being able to build an apartment building because it would “mess up the character that the local home owners bought their property for.” This happens consistently across the US and many people say that’s why about half the homeless people can’t afford a place to live.

Yes, but a lot of that is delaying marriage and having children. Some part of that is economic, some part is choice/culture.

A lot of it is the fed lowering rates which increases the returns to existing capital and drives prices upwards. It's almost like the older generation is taking out a mortgage on the future of the younger generation.... Oh wait. No, that's exactly what it is!

And likely the one (the economics of education and health costs, largely) driving the other.