I think housing as an appreciating is a weird Western capitalist socio-cultural artifact - in order to enter the middle class, you have to buy one, and the way to go about it smartly is to get a bank loan. Most people have no way of affording one otherwise, and if they did, paying sticker price for it would be dumb.
So everyone who's not considered a deadbeat shall be indebted to the bank for decades to come. Their prices are also supported by the collective power of the people - for whatever unreasonable price they're charging for it, you can be certain that someone (or some bank) has paid it, therefore it's in the best interest of significant chucks of regular folks that house prices don't go down.
Imo something similar is going on with retail investing.
Btw housing in China is not an appreciating asset, because you don't own the land, you merely lease it from the government for 70-100 years, which is about the natural lifespan of a lot of buildings, after which maintaining them becomes more expensiv than rebuilding them.
So everyone who's not considered a deadbeat shall be indebted to the bank for decades to come. Their prices are also supported by the collective power of the people - for whatever unreasonable price they're charging for it, you can be certain that someone (or some bank) has paid it, therefore it's in the best interest of significant chucks of regular folks that house prices don't go down.
Imo something similar is going on with retail investing.
Btw housing in China is not an appreciating asset, because you don't own the land, you merely lease it from the government for 70-100 years, which is about the natural lifespan of a lot of buildings, after which maintaining them becomes more expensiv than rebuilding them.