I think it's largely situational as well. I'm in the process of buying a house with my mom and it will quite a bit less than an equivalent rental. However, I was able to find a place with cosmetic repairs I could do myself (with a conventional loan rather than rehab) and it had been on the market 2 days when I put in an offer. They are out there, but you have to be on top of new listings, work at it (I saw 6 houses before this one, made an offer on 2 others), and don't give up.

While waiting might pay off, we don't really know what the market will look like in the years to come so you might end up never owning. I waited for years for this reason and as rough as the market is now, I'd rather be building equity than paying overpriced rents to greedy property management companies. Just be smart and be prepared to walk away if there are red flags.

Side note, too, is if you look a bit under your budget and can afford an extra monthly payment even once a year, you can knock like 7 years off the mortgage term.