People do not want to live out of the way. In fact there are quite possibly lots of homes already available out of the way and cheap; I've heard some countries like Italy and Japan give them away for nearly free.
You can get perfectly good 2000 SF, 4 BR homes in places like Fargo or Little Rock for $200,000.
There are reasons housing prices in expensive areas are what they are. Some of it is poor zoning and land usage that suppresses supply, but a lot of it is also demand. People want to live in dense, vibrant areas, even if they could live cheaper elsewhere.
I'd argue the pandemic rural flight exemplified precisely how much everyone values the vibrance and density of cities: when quarantine put a pause on the vibrance and nullified employment proximity, everyone had only affordability to select for. And when the vibrance returned, so did the residents. https://ncrc.org/the-washington-post-americans-are-returning...
