> just about every house has an owner that lives in it

Just under 2/3 of US homes have an owner that lives in it.

and the trend is clearly and strongly towards fewer owners.

Look at the percentage of houses bought by PE vs individuals in 2021.

https://www.redfin.com/news/investor-home-purchases-q3-2021/ Real-Estate Investors Bought a Record 18% of the U.S. Homes That Sold in the Third Quarter

yes, I know 18% < 1/3. But I also know that 18% > 6%, which was the figure in 2000.

the trend is pretty obvious.

You can look at the percentage of people in the under 45 bracket, and it's been trending down for decades. The total is probably remaining high because the lifespan was going up.

What's the number of owners + long-term renters? (the likely relevant metric when looking at housing price vs local incomes)

Ah, that's one of the ways the statistic I quoted is skewed. Short term rentals aren't considered "homes" by it, so it would be 100%.

What does this mean, exactly? They do have the right to purchase on at fair market value for structure + land - it's just they can't afford it. The land is crazy expensive.

I'm assuming "have one commissioned" is suggesting something about supply/zoning, but it's not clear to me what, exactly - if someone could afford to build or buy a house 3 miles from Dallas, should they also have the right to pay the same price to build something in the middle of Dallas?

Fair is the key word. The present government enforced scarcity is neither a free nor a fair market. A free market lets participants take the economically optimal choice[0]. A fair market cannot require kowtowing to the arbitrary and capricious whims of a planning board.

Ergo I hold that the respective governments and their zoning/construction policies are trampling on the individual right to a fair market and worse are creating grotesque amount of economic inefficiency, and by extension social damage, in the process.

[0]Trivially: adding units to a lot to capitalize on a high price of land relative to materials + labor.

Who is going to build these structures? Tradesmen today are already overbooked. And they’re going to work on projects that pay the best. That’s probably not affordable housing projects at scale.

The point is between land, materials, and labor, a lot of people can’t afford what they think they deserve.

Both the price of land and the amount of land you need per unit of housing have some serious fairness problems right now.