Housing can’t both be a good investment and be affordable
Great, so you made $50k because your $200k house is now worth $250k - a 25% increase. 
You now have a family and bigger income and are looking at a bigger house priced $500k. You are really glad that you “made” $50k on your old house.<p>But wait, if the new house is in the same neighbourhood, it’s price increase was probably <i>also</i> close to 25%. If prices had stayed the same, it would be worth $400k today.<p>So you just gained $50k on your old house but are paying $100k more on the new one.<p>This is only beneficial if you move from a large house in a popular area to a smaller house in a less popular area.<p>If you have kids, they might inherit the wealth gained from your housing “investment” - after splitting with their siblings and after taxes of course. Sounds good, until you realise that they will have to spend it all - and put in extra -  on housing because of the price increases.<p>In a world where housing prices stay the same, or become slightly cheaper year by year, everyone is better of. The prices of common utilities such as food and clothing have gone down spectacularly in the last decades while quality has gone up. No one would rather live in a world where these had instead become more expensive.
 It’s time we start thinking about housing in the same way.