I think they always will pretend like everything is fine. While I do tire a bit about people endlessly complaining about how everything is someone else's fault and that their inability to get a place lies squarely on the cabal of overlords manipulating the markets, there is definitely a lot of truth to the unaffordability of housing now. I guess I got lucky about the timing, but for me I bought within my price range and a type of house and land that I knew I could afford for a long period of time even if I suddenly found myself out of work. I know so many people that extended too far, became "house poor" and several people that were constantly in fear or losing their job because if they were to do so, they were only a couple of months away from losing their house, quite literally.
That being said there is no justification for the astronomical increase in value of my house and land. I have to get it assessed every couple of years for taxation purposes and it has more than doubled in value in the past 15 years. That just doesn't seem possible to me.