There was a time when potential financial benefits were secondary to the need for shelter. Over time, the loss of pensions and other factors forced people to put more emphasis on the financial returns. Then institutional investors found ways to turn housing into an asset class. That accelerated the growing perception that housing was about returns on investment, with shelter as a beneficial side effect. Now, the “shelter” component of housing is only just starting to become part of the discourse again, but is still mostly considered a side effect of housing as a financial investment.

Shelter will continue to be a problem until we go back to a system where housing is about shelter and prices rise at about the same rate as inflation (or slower, due to increased productivity!).