And the problem for that is most people can only have "wealth" if they have a home. Because the salaries have been stagnant since the 70s and the cost of living/existing has sky rocketed. So for most people they only way/dream they have to at least maintain the standard of living is to either inherit their parents home or sell it.

And all this is sponsored by the banks and governments because of interest payments and money from taxes.

It's absolutely ridiculous some 80yo shack costs half a million dollars/pounds/euros. There is no justification for it from a technical perspective.

A lot of the value is tied up in the land, because they aren’t really making any more of it, and location is everything. You could maybe move out to the middle of the desert surrounded by miles of nothing and get cheaper property, but then you have to figure out where you get the basics of life, like food, water, electric.

Remote work has disrupted countryside housing markets too, since workers moving in make much higher salaries than locals, who often lack the skills for picking up those jobs. A trickle out of metro areas in the millions is a tsunami for towns with population in the thousands.

> Because the salaries have been stagnant since the 70s and the cost of living/existing has sky rocketed.

I couldn't find info about salaries per se, but average hourly wage in the US increased by around 800% since 1970.

and the median nominal US home value is up 1728% since 1970[1].

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS

does that count for inflation?

according to below, its gone up by 2 inflation adjusted dollars compared to 1979...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/185369/median-hourly-ear...

With how easy investing in index funds is these days, that's no longer true.

You can build wealth more reliably and cheaply with automatic transfers to a target date fund than hoping any given real estate market takes off.

Automatic transfers of what?

I think you misunderstood my point, I was talking about most people barely keeping it together most months and not having income to ever afford buying a home and have a “comfortable” life. It’s not about investing in real estate but inheritance of a house when their parents die.

A percentage of every pay check.

Investing into index funds regularly is pretty much always gonna be a better investment strategy with higher returns and lower risk than hoping for an inheritance.

Also, local zoning and permitting in most big cities in the US keeps the supply of new homes at a tiny trickle, so there's no chance for prices to go down from increased supply.