The "Third World" vs. Western Model in having a home. The third world wins.

What you are describing—buying a plot of land, putting up a basic concrete or brick structure, living in it, and adding a second floor or a new room whenever you have extra savings—is known as incremental building.

It is highly efficient for the individual because it carries zero debt and zero interest. However, from the perspective of modern Western macroeconomics, incremental building is viewed as inefficient because it doesn't stimulate the financial sector.

The Western model was explicitly designed to tie housing to banking: the bank gets 30 years of guaranteed interest, the local government gets immediate property tax on a fully completed asset, and the consumer gets the psychological satisfaction of immediate ownership—even if they are renting it from the bank for the first three decades of their adult life.