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RE: He still died
It would be disastrous if the average house grew on value as it aged, taking the cost of repairs and upgrades into account.
You mean like building with pipework that needs to be upgraded every 25 years? When the plumbing was done on my building, double the cost and a building company could have built two brand new buildings in their stead. Those renovations get tacked onto the building value but make no change to the building itself. it is a scam :D
What I'm saying is that the prices of already existing homes cannot grow faster than inflation in the long run (except they're located in places that are becoming more attractive to live in at the expense of other places) unless there is something seriously wrong. I only mentioned repairs and upgrades because that's the only way to keep the value of any building from eventually going to zero as it ages.
When we were buying a house and calculating whether it made sense to buy or rent, I factored in an annual 1.5 percent depreciation of the value of the building minus renovations or possible upgrades. Old houses should not cost the same as new ones anywhere (unless they are some kind of culturally significant architectural works). If houses don't get significantly cheaper as they age (especially if they're not renovated according to the expected life span of various structures and systems), then there is a severe housing shortage for one reason or another or a stupidity epidemic among buyers. If don't renovate a residential building ever, then it will deteriorate to a point where living in it becomes too hazardous for health.
Houses are not investments nor a vehicle for the middle class to grow their wealth. The only exception to that is land appreciation and land can only appreciate in real terms in areas whose desirability as places to live in is increasing at the expense of other places. There are places like Vancouver, BC, Canada, or Toronto, Canada where ordinary houses cost seven figures CAD (or USD) and that is tragic. Runaway house prices are nothing but a wealth transfer mechanism from the younger generations to the older. In those places, young people are forced to move out or live with their parents forever. In those places, the tragedy is caused by Chinese money fleeing the country.
Now, it's too bad if people in your building have been told that pipework has to be redone every 25 years. It's actually designed to last 40-50 years. Usually, when the pipework is upgraded it makes no economic sense to do only that. It's a given that the bathrooms be renovated at the same time. It makes sense to replace the electrical wiring and systems at the same time, too. There is no reason to do that every 25 years. The designed life of those systems is much longer, more like a half century.