I wouldn't put a house into the category I understood the parent comment to talk about: it's not consumption, it's an investment. Still, you're right that it's something you're committed to and that would make it hard to "just walk away" from a job.
Savers get punished, but so do those that buy insurance, until the day they need it, I suppose.
The mortgage debt has to be serviced, and your kids have to go to the schools in the richest areas (aka best schools). Hence once you have kids, most are innately pushed to stretch themselves so their children have access to the best possible future.
A house is a terrible investment. I don't understand why people are so obsessed with them.
The only reason I can think of is that there's something very human about your house being yours.
Including me. I said this 20 years ago, I said this 15 years ago. But house prices just went up and up and up.
Houses you could buy for 20k are now worth 160-200.
The other thing that's avoiding forcing these sort of problems into the light is low interest rates and a lack of a housing market bubble pop. In the UK they've used all sorts of tricks to make sure the housing market doesn't pop.
If those change, that brings out all the people who over-stretched themselves on things they couldn't really afford.
But it seems to be general policy around the world to penalize savers and reward spenders. That's good for growth, but could potentially cause some serious problems.