Wow, you really jumped right to the hyperbolic strawman. But let's dig on that.

A. My parents bought a house in '83 for roughly $160k and made massive capital improvements on it over 30 years and then sold it in 2015 for about $250k. The value doesn't always skyrocket, a large part of that has to with specific economic growth in the location, location, location

B. I bought a place in '99 for $120k and it sold two years ago for $290k (we sold it 10 years ago)...the location became a booming area of growth.

C. The main point is those extra 20 years your parents had that house is likely the majority of the appreciation in value. Housing overall has been on an unsustainable rocket ride for the last 20 years, even WITH the 2008 crash, and the last 2 years have been even more batshit insane.

And lastly the specifics of early to mid 70s was a market low AND right as the rampant inflation of the late 70s/early 80s kicked in. There is nothing average about your parents particular housing appreciations experience. Historically they are outliers.

And that is a a very important thing to understand. The 2008 crash was partially driven by the fallacy that home ownership was like a guaranteed profit generating machine; buy more than you can afford because if payments becomes an issue you can just sell in 2 years for 160% of what you paid for it.