I think the thing you're missing is that affordable starter housing allows people to both meet a basic need and also make an investment. Consider three people,

I think the thing you're missing is that affordable starter housing allows people to both meet a basic need and also make an investment. Consider three people, p1, p2, p3. P1: works at job making $X and rents home entire life. P2: works at identical job making identical $X and buys + pays off identical home. P3: works at identical job making identical $X and buys + misses 10 mortgage payments on identical home. P1 is WAY better off than P2 or P3. Literally, the difference between retiring and working until you die. "can afford down-payment and also has enough stability to never miss payments" induces a VERY extreme nonlinearity in outcomes that CPI very much fails to capture. I don't think anything you've said in this thread even comes remotely close to acknowledging the reality that over half of America lives every day.