No, that’s not true at all. Housing is expensive mainly because banks use people’s deposits to issue loans, which fuels speculation instead of affordability. A large chunk of that lending goes to institutional investors who pool billions, buy up huge numbers of homes, and then flip or rent them back to the very people who need a place to live.

On top of that, governments force you to pay taxes simply for owning land you’ve already bought, a form of perpetual rent to the state. If banks couldn’t lend out depositor's money for speculative home buying, and if governments didn’t tax land ownership, mortgages as we know them wouldn’t even exist. Institutional investors wouldn’t be able to dominate the housing market.

In that scenario, you could buy a modest home and a small plot of land for a fraction of today’s prices, maybe $5,000, without taking on debt. People could start small, upgrade as they saved, and actually own their homes outright instead of being trapped in endless payments to banks and the government for their entire life