Something has to give. At least here in the US, it does. And housing is front and center... here in our area, the prices have been rocketing upwards for years, and in our neighborhood, the average time between listing for sale and selling is often less than a week. But many are being squeezed not only by rising interest rates, but by the fact that so many other expenses are indexed to the value of your home: Our homeowner's insurance is a premium "per $100K of value" so our insurance is also going up 15-20% a year. Our property taxes are based on the value, so they are ticking up by 15-20% a year. But those get hidden in the inflation figures because they measure rates (which are fairly stable) not the actual out-of-pocket expense.

We've been practicing the fine art of buying nothing at all for quite a while now, and we grow more and more of our own food.

But realistically, how many people have a million dollar house?

We do. By the latest estimate numbers our house is now worth $1,054,000 US. Except... to US it is "worth" the $289,000 we paid for it, in 2011. Because it's our home, not an investment. Similarly, if the housing prices take a 50% kick in the shorts, it wouldn't really make a difference to US, but the greater economy would fall into some variety of chaos.