Not trying to discount anyone's situation, but if you are in the USA and have the option, move out of the bigger cities and into the countryside. Land is cheap, houses can still be cheap and in some areas there aren't enough people to live in the houses so they are super cheap. Buy a house with the land, work remotely since high speed Internet is everywhere more or less. I live in a super small town that was crushed by NAFTA and only the local hospital keeps the community alive since it brings in a lot of good jobs.
Not "not for everyone" so much as "for a distressingly low number of people"
Like, I make decent money and still never would've been able to afford a home without help from my parents, and I can't believe some days how lucky I was/am for the circumstances that made that possible
I feel like that is an option for a pretty small subset of the population. You have to be willing to leave your current home where all of your family and friends probably are, able to 100% remote work and guarantee at least for a while you won't be affected by layoffs, and then be willing to make the transition to give up the conveniences of living close to a modern city. For the average Lemmy user, yeah you could probably do it. Average American, no. My job requires me to be onsite and it basically only exists in major cities.