Rich and Strange Aeons

Part of the situation is fixable with reasonable changes to laws and regulations, but some of it isn't. Consider cars, where you also have a high minimum cost for new cars (and sadly, while used cars go rapidly down in price, used houses often go up).

Cars uses lots of material, houses use far more, watches and clothes use very little. Also, cars and houses both have extensive safety regulations, which are pretty clearly an excellent idea.

In addition to changing zoning laws, and improving rentals (like in Germany), one change that is obvious in conception and likely very difficult in execution would be to find a way to ban housing speculation. Changing the dynamic of renting vs buying houses might help enough to fix this problem.