The price of manufactured goods has dropped significantly, thanks to technological progress and offshoring. The Fed has a mandate that average consumer prices must always be going up. Housing is one of the few areas where the Fed can create monetary inflation that reaches consumers, since instead of giving away newly-created money it generally has to be in the form of loans. Therefore, the price of housing will shoot up to compensate for manufactured goods dropping. And the more efficient technology becomes, the worse the effect will be.