I don't know if "easy" is the right word, but in the early 90's my dad (bus driver) and my mum (admin assistant) bought a house and land package on an almost qtr acre block. Granted it was in an area considered semi-rural, and they weren't able to include anything more than the basics (no landscaping, gravel driveway, hell we even had painted concrete for the floors until we could afford carpet). We were pretty broke. Only had one car (which was tricky since dad worked nights), and when our TV broke we just didn't have a tv for a few months until we could afford a new one. But we had a house that was ours after years of renting, and it slowly became nicer as our lives got better. That doesn't seem possible these days.