The housing market is complex and driven by many factors. But the main one, long-term, is population density. The regulations and zoning are side effects of th

The housing market is complex and driven by many factors. But the main one, long-term, is population density. The regulations and zoning are side effects of the fact that the housing market is used as a stable investment, precisely because population growth as been so steady for many decades now. Ultimately, speculators and finance are acting as pricing agents, and they also skew the market to extract as much juice as possible from it. But in the end, the usefulness, and thus the value, of houses, is determined by the good old market rules, supply and demand, everything else is high-frequency noise, not the signal.