You raise some interesting points. The housing market has been converted into a giant pyramid scheme, and the people being punished at the bottom don’t realize it quite yet (because they are just getting out of high school and college now).
The lending schemes have helped prop up that very last level of buyers, but it is close to being done now. It is regretable, because this whole thing should have been shut down a couple years ago with less damage. Now it stands to collapse the economy with it.