That dynamic is actually one of the reasons I think Corey Booker's "baby bonds" idea is so clever. If a child enters adulthood with some amount that has grown in a way that matches up with the economic growth at large, then maybe they won't be locked out of housing ownership.
There is not enough housing. The solution to rising prices isn't giving people more money to further bid up the price, but to increase the supply of housing which would lower (or at the very least, slow the growth of) housing prices.
The most interesting place I've seen this type of argument made it along these lines:
- US policy is for housing to appreciate in cost over time
- Housing is demanded by young people starting new households, and freed up by old people dying or moving into group housing.
- Housing policy is thus a massive ongoing transfer of wealth from incipient households to long-established ones.
- This is no way for a non-dysfunctional society to operate