The whole thing is rational, regardless of whether you realize it.

There are several issues with your position. Of course there are other factors, but it is inherently disingenuous and dishonest to ignore the fact that just alone since the year 2000 at least 45 million foreigners and their children are in the USA that would not have been here just based on natural population growth. So it's up to you if you can rationalize hard enough to ty to make an argument that adding 45 million additional people to the population would not have had some measurable impact on the "massive increase in housing valuations".

Genuinely, were you at all aware of just how many foreign people had come to the USA and then had children?