there's a lot of people that don't want to treat housing as an investment. most of these people rent from others that do treat housing as an investment. largely because they have no choice unless they break the law and live in illegal housing. housing in america, and how the values of housing keeps appreciating is very artificial. a house is something that deteriorates. it should not, generally, increase in value over time. there's a huge amount of land in america, the problem is that new building hits brick walls with zoning laws. you simply can't build in places in america in zones where other people already live, or if you can it will be prohibitively expensive. there's a lot of people that just want four walls and a toilet. there should be a huge market for people like this, the problem is it's not common, and it's illegal to build these sort of units in places where people live. they don't have enough features to be deemed fit to be habitable, which means, the house is too cheap to be put in this place. it's totally possible for $10,000 basic homes to put up all over america. they could be made out of shipping containers, or be prefabs, or apartment condos. that could be $250 a month for a 20 year mortgage. existing home owners will scream bloody murder and put up road blocks to prevent it from happening. so it's not going to happen.
United States