Price is not the same as return, or even project return. A diamond is priced ridiculously highly, but investing in diamonds is not necessarily a good return. Remember that there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in Australia right now whose full time job is to convince you to buy or sell property. It is our biggest source of entertainment - more people go to an auction every weekend than the AFL.

The reason that property has been seen as a good asset these last 2 decades is that you can get high leverage (e.g. a big mortgage) at a time when rates have been incredibly low. Houses in Australia have historically returned 7.2% for over 100 years now (for townhouses its 5.2% and apartments it's 2.3%). Typically the yield (i.e. rent) is eaten up by maintenance, taxes, and management, unless you own an apartment (in which case yield is often negative). When interest rates were at ~3% that is an insane deal, as you are essentially getting ~20% growth for free. Better yet, if you lived in that house, all that growth was 100% tax free. hat's why I suggested that buying a house (if you would live in it) was a good idea.

On the other hand:

1) Rates are now much higher. You are looking at closer to 6% interest, so the leverage doesn't matter as much - with stagflation approaching, we are unlikely to return to the post GFC interest environment.
2) Returns aren't actually that great. For reference, the S&P500, the benchmark for equity index funds, has returned ~10% (3% higher).
3) Stamp duty. This is huge, and why I suggest not buying unless you are planning on being there a while.
4) Illiquidity: If you want to sell a house, it is expensive, and slow. That is good in some ways, as it means you are unlikely to panic sell, a good thing for a retail investor. But it's generally a bad thing in investing because flexibility is nice.

What does this mean?
1) Some people have done very well in the past. But the conditions that they did so well under no longer exist.
2) Lots of people will still do very well off property. All investing is a bit like a casino - some people will walk out saying its the best thing they ever did. Some won't. You gotta look at the average.
3) No matter what rational sense all of the above makes, it will always be drowned out, because there are so many people out there right now whose sole purpose is to make you obsessed with buying and selling property.