This would help for sure, but housing stock is just so low in the US that prices will still remain high until that is fixed… or a large portion of the population dies.

To expand on this person’s point for those not aware, economists believe that the 30 year loan is detrimental to the movement of house stock and also leads to unfair economical advantages to those that can afford them.

With 30 year loans, there’s always a likelihood that mortgage rates will drop at some point in the loan, meaning you will probably refinance as low as possible when the opportunity presents itself. Because of this, when people’s lives change, they’re more reticent to move to another home because they’ll likely lose their current low mortgage rate. Right now we’re experiencing that since about 4ish years ago we had very low mortgage rates, that have since spiked. Older couples who’s kids are adults that moved out? might not want to move to a smaller home that better suits their lifestyle without kids around. Possible new job opportunity elsewhere in the country or even the state? The pay needs to be high enough, and job reliable enough, to ensure that moving into a new home with a higher interest rate is worth it. All these examples lead to people not moving from existing homes, which becomes a sort of domino effect of people not leaving their existing homes and maybe unable to move to more appropriate homes. My understanding is, we’re the only country in the world with a 30 year fixed loan. Other countries either have shorter fixed loans, or mixed loans(fixed for 10 years, then adjustable for the next 10 years, with limits on how much it changes).

Private Equity intensifies

Best I can do is introduce the new 40 year loan

Yup, the zoning changes plus a lot of similar factors since the 1980s crippled home building every recession, and never recovered it each time.