Ahhh, I see the confusion. Inflation is generally excluded as a measure of inflation (which is super helpful in this context, otherwise you’d be in for a bit of circular reasoning.)

it’s still falling short of the rate at which speculators can out-compete new generations for assets.

This was always the case. It’s not like in the 90s or early 00s, home buyers could magically outbid those with deep pockets.

I’m not claiming housing is now affordable but nothing has really changed in the fundamentals of capitalism that would explain the rise of housing prices.

What has happened, imo, is that unsurprisingly, population growth outpaced home starts (poke around the housing start data yourself, it’s neat AND more home starts were of the type people didn’t intend to live in forever (apartments, which is why there’s now an odd glut of small condos in larger cities) AND land near desirable large cities became more scarce (do what you will, hard to increaelse the amount of land) prices rose quickly.

All this to say, it’s easy to blame speculators and the wealthy but it’s not a particularly convincing argument as those already existed in large numbers well before housing became unaffordable.

Anyway, glad we’re both for the housing initiative!