There are no guarantees and the odds are harrowing. Software engineering could completely dry up tomorrow. Then what? The professions that make any sort of thriving wage and have some semblance of career stability (medicine, finance, etc.) all have stringent gatekeeping pedigree requirements. What's left? Sales? Restarting in a trade where all the incumbents have been doing manual labor since they were in middle school, and you're no longer as youthful and full of vigor as you once were? Grind out for 10 years to get a foothold in the industry, and your body's breaking down, but now you have a shot at starting your own business instead of getting paid $60k/yr (disregarding backbreaking overtime) to do shit work. Great, you're 40 now and all of the economic tribulations you've faced means your retirement accounts are severely lacking. You will never retire and will have to keep on working until you die (either naturally or on the job). Healthcare: costs are going to go up. Housing: you never got the chance to own, so now you're stuck burning money renting. Inflation: everything is more expensive, but compensation hasn't grown with it.
Or more poignantly: can you keep on grinding forever? With all of the young bucks that come into this field with the drive to "make a name for themself" and reinvent the wheel ad nauseam. Can you keep up, old man? You're one psychological accident away from being unable to put bread on the table. Then what? Disability? Living in halfway houses because you can't pay rent anymore? Being surrounded by people who've fallen on hard times who can do nothing but drag you down with them? That's when you spiral further into a hole you can never get yourself out of. You're fucked.
I don't expect to live like my parents, but I won't pretend that life is not utterly and depressingly precarious. Lucky are the middle-aged and older; for they had grown up in utter blissful ignorance of things. Woe is the hyper-connected youth; unable to simply exist.
And that is the thing - they simply do not see path to better conditions in the long term either.
Being unaware of reality is also a personal issue too, bud.
I'm guessing OP meant San Francisco?
There is some truth in that message. One can't always live where you wish. In my 20s my #1 goal in life was to live in Manhattan. I tried and tried and tried, but could never afford it. I gave up. Moved somewhere much cheaper (but still jobs around, not talking middle of the desert) where affording a house was no problem. It's not exactly what I wanted at the time, but looking back after a couple decades, has turned out fine.
You're assuming it's still possible to buy when saving 5k/year (what my median friend is able to do). It really isn't, or requires complete sacrifice of much of what makes life worth living anyway.
Re: location, there are cheaper places but they're far enough away it's like asking most people to move a plane ticket away from everyone they know (and likely all jobs they have experience in) to restart life.
Instead, most of my friends just accept the studio apartment they live in which costs half their cash flow, and spend the other half on essentials and therapy to cope. It's hard to see this from a $1M house in the burbs
Median weekly earnings of the nation's 122.1 million full-time wage and salary workers were $1,118 in the third quarter of 2023 (1118x52=58136)
412,020/58136=7.09 years wages to pay off a home
Median house price 1980: $64,600
The 1980 median family income was $21,020
64600/21020=3.07 years wages to pay off a home
https://www.redfin.com/us-housing-market
https://www.gobankingrates.com/investing/real-estate/how-muc...
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1982/demo/p60-13...
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more detail
2023:
412020 30 year loan at 6.5% =
Total principal paid $412,020
Total interest paid $525,508.80
Monthly payments $2,604.25
58136/12=monthly salary of 4844.6
53.7% of monthly pay going to home loan (at 0 down)
1980:
64600 30 year loan at 14% =
Total principal paid $64,600
Total interest paid $210,953.77
Monthly payments $765.43
21020/12=monthly salary of 1751.6
43% of monthly pay going to home loan (at 0 down)
"Giving up on housing" is not the right answer. "Start small and work your way up", like most of us did.
See, when you hit 20, you're looking at your parents, and you're seeing them when they're 45 or 50. You're not seeing them when they were 20. You expect that you're going to be able to live like they do at 50, not like they did when they were 20. That's not realistic.
But the answer isn't to give up. The answer is to keep working on it, over decades, instead of expecting it to be handed to you on day one.