It is an insane investment vehicle if you keep using the leverage and prices are going up faster than inflation (which is part of the problem).
Arguably they might not be going up much more than inflation once you calculate all the various new requirements for new buildings, but it's still a problem. In absolute long terms, housing can't become completely unaffordable.
Long term it is wildly affordable. 0$ rent is way better than some of the rents I have been seeing lately. Owning property and renting it out is a nice 'gig' if you are into that sort of thing. But if you have 5 properties and one bad tenet they can wipe out 2 years of ROI very quickly (had family members this happened to).
Holding value is also not necessarily a bad thing. You want a pyramid of investments. With your base being solid boring things. Then once you have those nicely going. Risk is not really that risky. It is not 'i am not going to eat today' it is 'darn lost that investment life goes on'.
It depends on the risk model you are making. My current one involves keeping a house and then using the money I would use for rent as investments. Think of whatever you are renting or your payment per month is. Now think of what could you do with that extra amount of money per month. I have had hundreds of people tell me the same thing. That there are these great investments out there where I could turn the value of a house into 1500-2000 a month with low work. Yet no one points them out. They 'are out there'.
My risk model is zero debt and no rent. Giving money to other people for borrowing is a risk model I used when I was younger. I no longer do that. It is like getting a 50% raise on the same income.
Arguably they might not be going up much more than inflation once you calculate all the various new requirements for new buildings, but it's still a problem. In absolute long terms, housing can't become completely unaffordable.