> namely homeowners

I'm a homeowner and rising house prices are terrible for me. Property taxes have doubled, and the prospect of switching neighborhoods (as one might consider doing for work, school, or other reasons) feels off the table given the high costs involved in the transaction, since agent fees are a percentage of the sale.

But some homeowners are to blame, at the civic level, where those who are happy with the way things are reinforce the roadblocks against affordable housing. Minimum lot sizes and anti-apartment legislation dissuade the pesky low-income riff-raff from moving in.

> and since most politicians at a high level usually own one or more houses,

That's a factor, but the bigger deal is that eligible homeowners ar 50% more likely to vote than eligible renters, and that doesn't even count that many renters are not event eligible to vote!

https://nlihc.org/resource/new-census-data-reveal-voter-turn...

It's a much bigger group than homeowners. Banks don't want housing prices to fall, since then homeowners start foreclosing and then banks lose interest payments and own undesired property. Cities don't want housing prices to fall, since they were counting on money from developers and property taxes.

I never see the NIMBY movement really engage with what falling prices would mean in practice. It just seems impossible to be allowed for any really duration over a large area.

I think a more realistic (but depressing) goal is modest loss to inflation (so prices go up by 1-2% less then inflation).

Falling prices are bad for economy. Lending brokers, construction companies, material suppliers - all will be hurt if price falls.

The best solution in my perspective is to have stagnant housing prices so eventually general inflation will make housing cheaper.

If we can keep the price of homes flat for 10 years then homeowners won't get hosed (still increasing equity by paying off principle) and homes get more affordable (assuming steady inflation and wage growth)

Many of the home owners would win in a freer market because their land would be worth more.

There's also a large lobby group that is fully invested in building new houses, namely real estate developers, and since most politicians at a high level usually need large campaign contributions, they are fully invested in it as well.

That's fine. On one hand the other saying "no" too much will stagnate the local economy, on the other a city doesn't need to accommodate an infinite number of people moving there. Either extreme will hurt property values in the long run, so there's a balance. I've seen places sell themselves out, I've also seen suburban sprawls where naive homeowners feel good about holding a house 20 years only to make 30% gain.

Nobody else should decide the balance but the residents who have semi-permanently set up their lives there. People considering where to move have no skin in the game, they can pick somewhere else if they don't like what they see or can't afford it. Developers at least have something to lose once they've set up shop, but they're still not raising families there. And by "should" I mean, I wouldn't buy a home in a place where homeowners don't have the most say. Those places do exist, and I'd only rent there temporarily.