Some people are so lucky, but let's say you each have university debt, and you have 2 kids, and you need to pay for childcare, and you have 2 cars so you can each get to your jobs, and your 3-4br apartment rent is 2-3k/month -- good luck saving 20k/year on ~70k take-home!

And that's all if you can live in a small-town-enough place where homes "only" cost 400k -- in many cities in the last 5 years (i.e. places where there are easy jobs to find), that's just not a realistic house price anymore.

I was a brick/stone-layer's labourer back around 2005, and we built a home that cost ~400k at the time, on the edge of a mid-sized town in southern Ontario. It was a mansion. Stonework, 4-car garage, big lot, 3 stories tall, 5 bedrooms, 3+ baths, the works. Today, I think that house we built could sell for ~1.5-2M.

Having 2 kids by 30 without being financial stable is kind of bad planning. They deserve to get crunched.

Where would you need cars and have to pay 2-3k for an apartment?

Prob like 1.5K/month, two economical cars. Pay off debt and build a nest egg, married at 30, kids at 32. Cook cheap and healthy meals. Outdoors for fun. No big drinking or expensive hobbies.

They can easily make it happen if they do the above.

It’s not my fault that people can’t prioritize and strap down.

Because they're not willing to make the tradeoffs that come with a $200k to $400k house. I don't even think there are houses for $400k though, even before 2020.

Of course there are. Just not in the hot spots on the east and west coast. If you go outside of those you can get ridic cheap.

I meant where I live.