And that is a necessity or you quickly reach absolutely insane conclusions, such as the average house costing 500x the average salary, and 200x the average income to rent.

It's simply impossible on a long term over a long area.

And, as HN commentators, we have been accustomed to appreciation in "our areas" for nearly 40 years now - and that has covered many "mistakes" that may not be covered in the future.

I think the point is that telling people that real estate, over the long term, appreciates barely more than inflation is something most people don't realize.

It's worse than that, they refuse to believe it - no matter how much data you pour on them, or point out, etc, the myth that real estate is the easy path to perpetual riches is ingrained in (US) society.

I disagree that desirable places aka tech cities are decreasing to the mean on price increases over the last 25 years. But I really need evidence instead of my opinion.

I think that in the expensive tech cities (for lack of a better description), like seattle, austin, SF/bay area, prices have generally increased over time much faster than inflation, and they aren't losing that lead. It's actually true that people can hardly afford to live in those places because hourly wages of $20+/hour is just not enough to pay for housing. Using a multiple of avg salary seems wrong because where does the average come from, because avg in that area?

It's simply too expensive for most regular workers, teachers, police, but also that person working at a coffee shop can't afford to live there. It's not a good thing. I recognize we need to build more housing and I'm part of the problem because I bought a house in mine a long time ago.