“In terms of total returns, residential real estate and equities have shown very similar and high real total gains, on average about 7% per year. Housing outperformed equity before WW2. Since WW2, equities have outperformed housing on average, but only at the cost of much higher volatility and higher synchronicity with the business cycle. The observation that housing returns are similar to equity returns, yet considerably less volatile, is puzzling.”

https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/wp2017-25.p...

The US was a brand new country that was mostly empty. Look at England for some historical data.