Expensive housing markets are very unhealthy. A median home is considered affordable at 5x median income. Most of the expensive areas (San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, etc.) are at 10+x.

The other metric is median rent as a percentage of median income. Nationally it has hit 40% when the affordability mark is 33%.

Just because what you are experiencing has been a norm for a while does not make it good, or the goal.