There is no painless way out of this mess. The first option is to inflate housing prices away. A $600k starter home would become reasonable and a loaf of bread

There is no painless way out of this mess. The first option is to inflate housing prices away. A $600k starter home would become reasonable and a loaf of bread would be $8-$10. The second option is to let housing crash and burn. The first option is politically more palatable but pretty hard to do against such powerful deflationary headwinds, so my money is on the second when the boomers dump their real estate. Anyone who bought at these prices is already underwater. The thing to look at is housing as a multiple of median income. If it looks insane, it is insane.