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I see your point but considering the difference in price between:
http://www.barratthomes.co.uk/new-homes/cleveland/H249201-Meadow-Rise/
and
http://www.barratthomes.co.uk/new-homes/middlesex/H442601-Edgware-Green/It doesn't seem to me that the cost of materials and labour is really the main driver of final price.
The point @fidbod makes sounds like it fucks the banks over but perhaps 10x cheaper is too extreme to make a realistic comparison. I also don't know the penalties for defaulting and where the cost benefit of doing it overcomes and potential problems.
If houses were 10x cheaper to buy then it would be uneconomical to build them. So all developers and house-building companies would go out of business overnight. Cue massive redundancies in the construction industry, a massive increase in unemployment, a reduction in GDP and tax income and a huge increase in social security payments. Cue knock-on effects on the rest of the economy, and you'd be looking at a recession of biblical proportions.