Owning a home is useful in that you must have somewhere to live, and ownership can reduce your cost of living. That’s separate from the price rising, even stable prices allow you to build equity and lower your CoL.
My unpopular opinion is that home prices should fluctuate around inflation, barring sudden changes in local population. The utility of a home is effectively fixed, most of us will never afford two, making the ability for them to rise in value faster than wages in the area limited. Furthermore, without maintenance and occasional renovations homes actually degrade, implying that their value should actually slip slightly compared to inflation without occasional infusions of cash.
It's maybe an unpopular opinion but it is the truth - Robert Shiller has gathered a lot of data that confirms it (prices go along with inflation if you don't compensate for maintenance costs - meaning that the actual value depreciates over time). He writes about it extensively in Irrational Exuberance.
My unpopular opinion is that home prices should fluctuate around inflation, barring sudden changes in local population. The utility of a home is effectively fixed, most of us will never afford two, making the ability for them to rise in value faster than wages in the area limited. Furthermore, without maintenance and occasional renovations homes actually degrade, implying that their value should actually slip slightly compared to inflation without occasional infusions of cash.