Essentially everybody in the US is continually trying to make their fortune by picking a winner instead of adding productivity and value.

Have your house appreciate.

Pick the right stocks.

Invest in the right company.

Become a landlord in the right neighborhoods.

Everyone wants to be a genius speculator instead of doing work.

Because getting the mortgage to buy the house involves parting with a large sum of money, after which some part of the mortgage payment goes towards something called principal. If it just goes towards interest, it may as well be rent.

Not to mention that when you try to sell the thing, there's some expectation by one or more third parties of some percentage of it.

Anyway, nowadays population is barely increasing so I guess property values… maybe they’ll keep pace with inflation (for whatever reason)?

Another possibility is that property values tend to go up and down as some areas become more fashionable. Maybe, for whatever reason, there’s a selection bias where we tend to associate ourselves the trajectory of people who lived in those fashionable areas instead of the unfashionable ones?

The land goes up in value when other people spend money. More retail is constructed nearby, transportation is improved, schools improve, jobs are created, etc. My land captures some of that value even though I paid nothing. That to me explains some of the fairness of property tax: the owner should contribute to the government services, such as schools and police, that help make the land appreciate in the first place.

Then there's the building. It's a wood box that sits out in the rain and rots. Water soaks in from the outside and pipes burst on the inside. Termites eat it and insects and vermin invade. Carpet and walls slowly degrade. HVAC systems wear out. Appliances break. Concrete breaks apart. Even on the land portion, plants die and need maintenance. (Trees are the only thing on a property that get better with time.) This building needs constant maintenance and I'm always spending money and time on it.

So I figure the land might go up slowly in value over time. I figure I'm lucky if the building appreciates at all after I consider the money I sink into it.

On paper my house is worth a lot more than when I bought it. But I don't know how much of that is nominal price change due to inflation.

Jesus it’s not rocket surgery. People want to live in a nice area, as more people show up and want to live in a nice area prices rise with rising demand accordingly. For the counter example, there are very large houses basically for free in Detroit. No one wants them.