Empirically I just dont think this is true. I have lived in chicago my entire life and rent prices doubled in the last decade after being stagnant for 2 decades. Its not that people are making more money, the economy here is middling. Prices are going up because we stopped building new housing. I recently bought a second home in SLC, prices there are down 10% this year even though wages in the region are up. Housing values can and do go down.