There’s a glut of homes for sale, in places with either no economic prospects or low desirability to live. More and more higher income people competing with each other in less and less land area = higher sale prices.
This. My Dad's home in a lagging industrial town in the Upper Midwest is probably only worth about 1.5x what he paid for it 40 years ago. He has well over an acre and the house is in great shape. No one wants to move there though, so housing prices are depressed.
He'd like to move, but would have to take on a mortgage in his 70s, so he'll stay put and my sibling and I will sell it for whatever we can get when he passes.
