At least in the US, property ownership has been public record. You can look up who owns any parcel of land. You can't opt out of your address being public. It's just somewhat easier to search this data in today's era.
Not everyone owns a house, and people with privacy concerns have for a long time used companies or trusts to hold property or to simplify family ownership (my next-door neighbors are nowhere near rich but used a family trust to simplify inheritance when the owner started getting old).
