It was a US-specific thing created by massive post-war infrastructure investment (read: suburban sprawl) and cheap automobiles.

This entire problem more or less resolves to the cost of land. It became effectively super-cheap post-WW2 for the aforementioned reasons. Now we've run out that runway and will face rolling bankruptcies across all sorts of municipalities due to infra maintenance costs.

Working class parents in their 20s in the USA could afford to buy their own homes well into the 2000s. Some got burned by cyclical factors, high interest, etc...; but many still achieved sustained lifetime home ownership.

Possibly. I bought my first house in my 20s in the US, this would have been in 1980s. I remember the 12.5% interest on the mortgage.

We bought our house in 1982 with a 15.5% mortgage rate, refinanced to 11.25 in 1985, then 8.5 in 1987.

I don't buy that because China has very high home ownership rates.

So it can be done. Even today.

China is arguably currently also in an exceptional situation though. The question is how long that lasts. The next generation or the one after will most likely also complain that their parents were much better off when they were young ;)

I guess you’re not British either then?

German, of course ;)

The German equivalent is that everybody is complaining about rising rents in city centers because everybody wants to live in city centers. Home ownership in Germany basically means that you'll have to pay it off for the rest of your life anyway (and that's not a new phenomenon) so in the end there isn't all that much difference to renting finance-wise, except that renting is usually much less hassle.

The usual distinction between rent and mortgage is that your housing costs build equity when you are paying off your mortgage. Either way, your salary vanishes, but if you pay off the mortgage then you own a six-figure asset.

What the calculation looks like is extremely dependent on local constants, of course. I'm some countries, housing depreciates.

Not just US - UK, Canada, Australia, etc.