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Outside of a crash, the one avenue I don't see discussed very often for how this can end is for contractors to start building smaller.
Where I live there are two main problems hindering this natural market development: Regulations and lot allocation. Smaller contractors can easily build small in theory. But due to lot allocation, high lot price and regulations, it's not economically viable. This leaves small contractors unable to meet market conditions since a lot of prospective home buyers are priced out of single family homes. Which places the ball in the hands of larger contractor operations that can deal with the situation more easily via multi story housing. So problem solved. Smaller contractors fade out of business.
The 'small' problem with this, and why I think this is the future, is that we are looking at a pretty obvious lowering of living standards. Your future is less idyllic and smaller in scale.
On a certain time scale there is nothing wrong with this. People should start small, build capital in their small home, sell it later and expand into something bigger that can more easily house a larger family. The real issue is more clear when you look at this in a modern context.
Most people don't have families until they are in their 30's. Of those that do, there will be many who had not entered the real estate market until their late 20's. Depending on income, your children will be raised in a small home for the majority of their lives. Any dreams of green grass, a white picket fence and children playing with a puppy will stay as dreams. You will not be giving your children the childhood your parents gave you.
This development, at least where I live in Scandinavia, is already underway. Being marketed as a conversation about how we should orient our lives and a challenge to critically confront our values. Forget about owning a car, a big dog or raising your children. You will see your family 4 hours a day in a mass produced concrete box, stacked on other concrete boxes. Everything will be shrinking. Everything is being outsourced. It may not be the future anyone wanted, but it's the future everyone has been voting for. The migrant who is delivering your half eaten UberEats order has to live somewhere, after all.
I'd be curious how this aligns with populations that are starting to decline: it seems at some point you'd have a housing surplus unless everyone takes up second homes. I'd look to Japan, but their housing market is weird by Western standards. I know in the US it's often a location issue: there are cheap ghost towns but no employment prospects near them.
The short answer is that housing markets have a failure mode where all the family homes have pensioner couples living in them, and all the two-bed flats have families with children living them.
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