I’m not arguing in favor for house prices going up but just wanted to point out how a lot of people use the value of their home. You can pull out money from your house and your interest payments don’t change when the value of your house goes up.

I’ll give the example of my neighbor. They bought their house 10 years ago at about $250k. Interest rates were around 4.5%. We’re in a location that got really hot during the pandemic and the house value jumped to about $700k. At that moment, they had the same payments as 10 years ago. Then interest rates dropped down below 3%. His balance on the original mortgage is probably about $175k and now he refinances the house with a mortgage of $325k, pays off the old loan, and pockets $150k out of the house. But due to the lower interest rates, his payment is the same as it was 10 years ago. He just has $150k in his pocket. Meanwhile, I’m the schmuck who had to buy the identical house at $700k at 5% and pay 3x for the same house.