When I say, "society" I mean the government.

Here in Austria the laws have been made to encourage single home ownership and strongly discourage real estate speculation. It works.

The government also is big into real estate, so that there are an enormous number of flats available for lower income people. This also very much skews the private rental market (I have rental property) because the government, who is not trying to make a profit, is your competition. This keeps prices low.

You can make money in real estate in Austria, but by design it is a VERY slow growing investment over decades rather than anything like a get-rich-quick method.

Most importantly, taxes on real-estate are front loaded with virtually no yearly property tax. This keeps people on fixed income from losing their homes due to changes in the real-estate market.