How housing became the world’s biggest asset class

IN 1762 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN set sail from England to Philadelphia after several years away. On his arrival he was shocked by what he saw. “The Expence of Living is greatly advanc’d in my Absence,” he wrote to a friend. Housing, he thought, had become particularly expensive. “Rent of old Houses, and Value of Lands…are trebled in the last Six Years,” he complained.