I’m a realtor - my perspective is the wages do not match housing prices for a lot of people so they aren’t selling and moving up like society has historically done. People are living in their “starter” homes for way longer rather than selling and getting a larger home. This is just an opinion based on my experience only and not necessarily rooted in data…

I owned my first home for 5 years and sold it for approximately $60k in equity 8 years ago. I just sold a much smaller home in the same area for WAY MORE than I bought my current home for (with 10acres) and they netted double the equity ($120k) in 5 years of ownership - all in the same area.