Is this also true for places like Detroit, small inner towns in the mid ? West... my impression was that once banks got involved lending money the prices took off, I was under the impression that getting a house loan directly contributes to the amount of money in circulation...thereby increasing ? inflation.... another myth?) I heard was that in China houses are leased for x years (80?) thereby leading to a lot of Chinese buying foreign Real Estate.... if RE has the reputation of accruing value surely it'd be a good thing to put the brakes on companies from investing in it? I mean seeing endless same housing is kind of mind numbing....

I also have a theory that high RE prices are a perfect vehicule for stashing/laundering large sums of money....

Also to what extent isn't it political cronyism with the construction industry that leads to such shitty urbanistic decisions like we have in Romania where people are pawns to short term greed ...

Land values can turn around, especially if desirability of the area changes.