The housing crisis didn’t start with low supply, it started in 1971…

16 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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1:05

Short YouTube commentary by Dan Novaes arguing that the modern US housing affordability crisis stems primarily from monetary policy change in 1971 (the US leaving the gold standard), which produced sustained inflation and encouraged investment into real estate; the video attributes the 2021 housing-price spike to large-scale money creation and contends that wages have not kept pace, thus pricing many out of homeownership.

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What if I told you the housing crisis didn't start with low supply or bad investors, but with a single event in 1971? Look at this chart. Before 1970, home values and incomes were a perfect match. Then this happened. The reason why they split apart is the most important financial secret of the last 50 years. In 1971, the United States went off the gold standard, making the US Dollar no longer backed by gold. This caused a huge spike of inflation, and home prices have been rising unnaturally ever since. As money is being devalued faster, it forces more people to invest to prot against inflation. This means more people invest in houses. The idea of a rental property wasn't nearly as popular before 1970. If you print money out of thin air, it has to go somewhere. And real estate is a popular place. Real estate prices spiked in 2021 because trillions of dollars were printed. The main issue, as you see, is wages do not go up fast enough to match the inflation. So it ends up pricing a lot of people out of a house. In order to really fix the problem, you might have to fix the money itself. So next time someone says low supply, send them this video. The problem isn't the house, it's the dollar. For more this follow UBK.