Definitely not the case in the country I live. Too many fucking restrictions. And there's no way in hell are new apartments cheaper than the old ones. The old ones are getting renovated or totally destroyed. And new ones come up again. And the newer buildings are fucking expensive, like too much. I don't think the situation you're talking about is prevalent everywhere, its mostly only in the US or in cheap developing countries. One factor that needs to be considered here is where the buildings are being built. From your case, I think people are buying the apartments in the outskirts of any given city and overtime people will start moving there and the rent/land value will go up.