I'm not sure that billions of people build houses with wood. It's definitely an American thing, Europe not so much (bricks and concrete.) China is concrete. India? South America? Mexico? Africa?
Because they do not have ample wood, not even the lower quality type farmed in US/Canada today. More specifically, the supply of the type of old school high quality wood being talked about in previous comments from 1920s and whatnot would certainly be impossible to satisfy global demand. Which is also a big reason why it is not used now. You can get it, it is just extremely expensive.
