i live in a generally LCOL region in a MCOL small city. the housing market here has generally been acknowledged as "tight" (houses put on the market are sold very fast) for about 6 years. though, generally, i would describe the prices as reasonable compared to median salaries up until about 4-5 years ago. rents starting climbing up fast and then home prices went up 50% or more in a very short time.

historically, the housing inventory for this city in the last decade or so stayed around 2000 on average, swinging each year +/- 300. this refers to homes listed on the market. in the last few years, that number has plummeted to something like 500. meanwhile, houses designated as "short term rentals" (airbnb, vrbo, etc) went from 0 to about 1400.

i'm not going to say airBNB type shit is entirely responsible for the current recognized-by-local-government housing crisis. certainly, there was downward pressure on residential construction for a bit during COVID, but in the last years, tons of multi-unit construction has popped up (5-over-1s, etc) and seems like 75% of it was cannibalized by conversion into short term rentals.

i will say i think there was a STR bubble that is probably deflating now due to whatever the fuck, the recession, recognition that STRs often suck ass to stay in, etc. i don't know that this will translate into lower housing prices, but i would bet they won't climb for a while as some these bozos can no longer cover their mortgage payments with STR income. and that might translate into lower home prices if the trend continues for a while / how many of these people are over leveraged.