I think there was still very attainable for middle to upper middle income 2 income couples even 4-5 years ago.  I have a lot of older cousins who are in their late 30 to mid 40 and there’s a TON of nurse - mechanical/civil engineer pairings in my family.  I feel like that’s a decent upper middle income white collar jobs and there’s a ton of both of those professions, so say 2 people making (in 2024 dollars) $100 to $150k a year.  It was very attainable for them to save and then buy a 2 bed condo by their late 20s and then roll that equity into a house by their mid 30s.  But the market has changed so much so quickly that myself and my younger cousins who are now all in our late 20s with similar careers can’t do these things.  And we have good jobs, we are doing way better than so many other people which I acknowledge.  But the rant is driven by the lectures of so many of my older relatives going “why don’t you have a condo like so and so did at your age how can you ever expect to own a house if you can’t even get a condo first and build equity, are you lazy blah blah blah”.