Shelter is a unique and essential commodity. To me, it makes sense that it appreciates faster than your average good which is rarely essential. At the same time, if housing was made universally available, I think the great lift in burden on the average citizen would render the need for appreciating assets to diminish. As it stands now, my house has to appreciate for it to be worth it
Food is also essential. If housing appreciated at a constant rate against a commodity like wheat for example, eventually you would be able to sell a house for the entire global supply of wheat (assuming wheat supply grew slower) .
Food in general is essential but not any one specific form of food. If wheat was the only food then I would agree. The same could be said for housing but housing in a particular location is mostly fixed and limited unlike the flow of food and other resources
Shelter is essential, but "real returns" means returns to housing as an asset above inflation, which includes the cost of shelter. Even if the cost of every other good drops to zero and all that is left is rent, the house asset would need to keep going up faster than the rent charged to live there. Maybe that's possible in the case of increasing population and population density, but it can't be possible everywhere, especially with a flat or declining population. Unless interest rates fall forever, that is.
