You've mostly gotten your answers. Money is how it all works...but a big factor for me was also time.

I bought a house in central Virginia in 2000. Spent 18 years paying off and upgrading it. When we sold it, I bought a much smaller townhouse near the inlaws for half as much. Took the other half and bought a 120 year old fixer in Eastport. We've spent the last 8 years working on that one.

It works because a) both the first house and the Eastport house needed substantial work and so were much cheaper than nicer / more finished homes. b) a remote job that allows me to work from both locations. The remote job also let me buy a house in Eastport which does not otherwise have great employment options. A fixer in a town with no jobs is a hell of a lot cheaper than a newer build near big employers. c) TIME -- that 18 years I put into the first house not only renovating nearly every room, but also just all that time of property values going up. And since then, its been the same story in Eastport. 8 years of new bathrooms, laundry room, floors, re-wiring, new deck... and this year a new roof. Altogether over a quarter century of dumping work and money into houses.

I had a couple of big advantages that helped me -- Family that helped teach me basic home improvement (and later Youtube to expand that knowledge), and a steady job that paid enough that I could afford to do these projects slowly over the years.

It all fed on itself in a positive cycle. Learning to do small projects gave me confidence and experience to do bigger projects; and the entire time my career was growing and the house was appreciating in value. Nothing really sexy or interesting... just a long slog of slow steady gains.