But because real estate stores value, there's plenty of demand for it most of the time. Yes, when bubbles pop, real estate prices can drop below their direct use value, as you put it. But they usually don't stay there for long. What's the issue that you see with this? If real estate bubbles didn't cause the economy to crash now and then, then some other important asset would. That's the nature of capitalism--boom and bust cycles.
I'm curious: how do you think bitcoin would help solve this?
Well houses are used as a store of value, and thus acquires a higher value than its use value. If good money is available, that money will be used as a store of value. Then you don't have to realize half your house to pay for your kids college, that involves moving to a house of half the size, which is costly and maybe not what you want. So at any time you will have a right-sized house, and your savings in good money.
A house is not an investment, it is more like a durable consumer good that takes many years to consume.
The idea that a house is an investment, comes from the fact that it rises in the bubble build-up phase, combined with low interest loans which are the effect of government credit creation.
So it will be solved (if all goes well) in the way that the money value of houses will be sucked into bitcoins instead, leaving the houses with only the use value. I don't have a timeframe, other calamities may happen first.
Plague? See my theory of money as bubbles. Since bitcoin has no use value, it is perfect for this. In fact adam smith considered that if something different from gold was money, that would be a problem, because it would distort the use value of the stuff being money. For instance, he said, if rice was money, the saving of rice would necessarily lead to hunger for some. What we have, is houses are money, and we have exactly the problems that adam smith envisioned: houses (in london and new york) are hoarded, and noone lives in them, to the detriment of people needing houses. That is the problem. Money like bitcoin (and fiat) with no value for direct use, is perfect exactly because they have no use value. Fiat is good for every money function, except the store of value, therefore bitcoin will solve the problem with houses as money, and release the resources now unneccesarily bound in houses.
I'm a little confused here. You say that bitcoin and fiat have no value for direct use, with which I agree. You then say that fiat does not work as a store of value. But then you imply that bitcoin can be a store of value that will suck in all of the extra stored value of the housing market. Why wouldn't bitcoin and fiat be the same in this regard? Yes, bitcoin has limited supply, but why does that mean that it should be considered a safe store of value (it would have to be considered even safer than real estate to suck in its stored value)? Or are you thinking of a future in which bitcoin basically becomes the reserve currency of the world, or at least the dominant currency of a particular country or region?
The difference between fiat and bitcoin is precisely that fiat is unlimited, and bitcoin is limited in supply. Since fiat is unlimited in supply, it can not be used as a store of value. Each time the supply is doubled, the stored value is halved (well, after the new fiat is dispersed). This is the main difference that bitcoin makes. It is in effect now, no need to wait until all others use bitcoins, if they ever will.