I don't really agree. Japan has had very easy money and QE for ten years longer than the West. Yet, it's one of the few housing markets in the world where prices have not risen in 25 years.[1] Runaway housing costs are everywhere and always a phenomenon that results supply constraints. Usually entirely zoning/regulatory driven. Usually due to NIMBY activism.
Given supply constraints, I agree that easy money probably does drive up prices. But without artificial constraints, any rise in price would just dissipate back into higher supplies. That's why you see QE result in higher housing costs, but not higher car prices.
Japan's population is declining. What's your point?
Why would you expect house prices to go up when there's a ridiculous oversupply of housing. There's only 55M households in Japan, and there's ~9M vacant homes. That's ~14% of homes.
Housing is an expense unless there's someone to live in it and pay rent.
Tokyo is growing faster than New York, London, or most other major Western metros.[1] (It's true Japan as a whole has slow growth, but Tokyo still has robust growth because or rural to urban migration.) Yet real housing prices have not risen in Tokyo in 25 years.
Even so, normal people can and do buy property in close proximity to the city center all the time, and cheap rent spots are easy to come by. Minato-ku was definitely crazy overspeculated, but go 15 minutes away by train and you get an order of magnitude cheaper housing.
Given supply constraints, I agree that easy money probably does drive up prices. But without artificial constraints, any rise in price would just dissipate back into higher supplies. That's why you see QE result in higher housing costs, but not higher car prices.
[1]https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-ho...