Yeah, I think that’s part of it. I understand that a lot more people want a place to live than want the newest phones, that no one wants to live next to bad neighbors, that people like having guests and competing for status, that land close to major cities is finite, etc... but it still seems weird that people are charging more money than what people actually have. If you took loans out of the equation, part of me thinks houses would start reflecting people’s actual needs and means better and would drop significantly in price. Eventually I think they would provide people with a sense of security rather than obligation since you’d have to buy them outright, and eventually that security would result in more creative/entrepreneurial activity. But maybe I’m just severely undervaluing all the work required to build a basic house/overestimating how much the process of building them could be streamlined so as to avoid loans.