I make 150K and to buy an affordable home that isn't a teardown, say under 600K, you need a two hour commute from the downtown area. Anything inside an hour of the downtown is more like 800K+ and being bought up by people with family money or 300-400K yearly incomes. someone making 45K in my city needs to live multiple people to a bedroom to afford rent.

But it's all about where you live and the incomes. Where I live 150K income puts you only in the top 20% of households. And I don't have family money backing me like most of my peers in the housing market. Most of my friends got 100-200K gifts from family to buy their homes.

53% above average of my country.

Buying a house without signing up for a lifetime crippling dept is plain impossible in large cities.

To get into a cost range where my wife (same salary) and I feel comfortable to take on a loan requires us to move roughly one or two hours train travel out into the countryside.