Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

What argument(s) support the claim that long-term housing prices trend upward?
Several people have mentioned the obvious: inflation.  But let's assume we are talking about real (inflation adjusted) prices. One argument is that populations keep rising while the land does not change.  So the price of homes in desirable places gets pushed up and people move to second-best locations, pushing those prices up, etc.  Similar Malthusian argument holds for raw materials (steel, granite, fine wood, etc.). Another argument is that the economy has a long-term upward trajectory (that's the assumption).  So each generation, as a whole, has more disposable real income than the previous.  As disposable income increases, people tend to put more and more money into their homes, pushing prices up.  True for all goods, of course, but it may be more true for real estate than for other types of goods.