Fair enough, that is a good point about CRE.  Also true is luxury housing is overbuilt.

However, if you look at Japan where the population has actually been shrinking, not just growing slower, they have the opposite problem, whole towns with empty, overgrown houses.  It's also true in Italy, where they're selling houses for €1 that have been sitting empty.

So there's definitely a correlation between population growth and housing availability.  Also true that the DIY housebuilder is a dying breed, though NF here bucked the trend with that building his Doomstead.  He is of course in the building trades as a profession though, and not a white collar corporate drone.  DIY at all levels has nearly vanished, planned obsolescence and increasing complexity squeezed that nearly out of existence.  Back in the 50s & 60s, guys spent all their time working on their cars, that's where the term "Greasers" came from, for Grease Monkey.  When they started dropping computer chips in cars and you needed expensive diagnostic equipment to fix it, you had to bring it to the shop.  Now with Teslas, the shops can't even fix the batts.  TV repair shops are gone, when your Big Screen TV dies, you buy a new one.

So, yes, there are choices involved which have made the situation worse, but it remains true that new housing isn't being built fast enough, because housing for poor people isn't profitable.  Population growth has resulted in many more poor people than new rich people.  Rich people have just gotten richer, there aren't more of them by percentage.

RE