Canada

I agree that real estate is expensive because the people with the most economic power want it to be expensive. Nearly every Boomer out there is counting on real estate investments (in the form of their massively overvalued houses) to see them through retirement, but that has required housing to constantly appreciate over the last 50 years. If housing were suddenly made affordable again, the state would have to support millions of wiped out Boomers whose only asset is suddenly worth no more than a shelter to sleep under.

There are any number of things a state could do to make holding real estate an unattractive investment and absolutely tank the real estate market -- which would be good for every poor person struggling to find a shelter to sleep under, and murder on entrenched capital. There's an obvious conflict of interests here. The ruling class has a "moral" incentive to make housing affordable for everyone, but they have an even stronger financial incentive not to. They are openly squeezing us exactly hard enough to get the most money out of us, no matter how many people needlessly die, no matter how many children are raised in inter-generational poverty. It's not part of the calculation, it's incidental.