the idea of building wealth for most homeowners simply is not there.

I think it's interesting to buy a primary residence with borrowed money, live in it (build equity all the time) and complain if in the short term the nominal value goes down. If the market is down overall then moving to a similar city should be ok if you can sell at a loss but buy the dip in another location.

If you buy a home to live in for the rest of your life the value is effectively meaningless to you. The cost of capital and ongoing repair and whether it meets needs in a person's old age are more important I suppose.