Comment by pjmorris

I think there's a more concrete measure of value: house prices related to income. Historically (Robert Shiller has a chart for the US going back to 1890) house prices (and mortgages and rents) have maintained a stable relationship with income. Occasionally that relationship is strained but it has usually fallen back in line. One exception to this was the extraordinary, ongoing, support to the financial system post-2008. House prices and other financial assets have ballooned in relative proportion to wage income. That's more than a perception of value, that's a matter of social stability as most people depend on the same paycheck for not only housing but food, medicine, etc, as well as housing.