If you’re going to look at national figures then your argument is about national figures, not local figures. If you look at prices locally between 1989-1996 and several other 7-year periods in our history you will see the reverse of prices tracking inflation. If you narrow your window to 5-years or 3 years you’ll see even more examples of that.
Incidentally, the changes in 1975-1982 time frames were due in part to the changes in the tax code, and in California, due to the effects of Proposition 13. Tying property taxes to purchase prices rather than to market value had a huge effect over the long term to the pricing structure.