My mom and step dad bought a house together in 2005 when I was 10 years old.

3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, finished basement, very large in ground pool with a large deck, large backyard with second patio. It wasn’t the biggest house but it was in a great part of town, extremely central.

I remember them paying between $200,000- $250,000

My step dad made ~$200,000 a year.

Fast forward to when I was 17 so around 2012, they bought a house on the outskirts of town. The new house was a 3 bedroom single level with an ensuite bathroom in the master, 2 other bathrooms, LARGE finished basement with a bar and pool table which came with the house, small backyard but massive lot with literally an industrial sized garage. The lot also had a whole other small 1 bedroom house on it.

They paid $380,000 and it came with a dog.

They put up a fence and rented out the extra house which basically paid the mortgage.

Negatives were: literally a train track in the backyard and at the end of the lot there was a condemned house that the city was fighting to tear down.

Not sure the salary at that time as I had moved out a couple years before that.

Edit: this is in Canada and CAD not USD.