My then b/f and I lived in rented accommodation on the south coast nearly forty years ago and couldn't afford to buy even a small property there. We moved to East Anglia which was very cheap and loaded ourselves with a mortgage which ate about half of our earnings and were paying a 14% interest rate.
We had no spare cash for indulgences but entertained people at home with dinners and parties which were cheap and enjoyable. Our pleasures were mostly free: walking, reading, visiting historical and other places of interest. We had a blast.
Our first home appreciated very slowly but gave us a small amount of equity (£7000) which we invested in buying a much smaller house when we had to move back down south for jobs. We then progressed to a complete doer-upper which took thirty slow years of improvement to bring up to scratch as and when we could afford it. The whole of the time my then DH and I worked full time, even through having two children. At times it felt like slave labour and got very grim.
We now have a nice house and it peeves me to hear envious people who wouldn't make any sacrifices themselves call us 'lucky' as if it had all dropped into our laps from the gods.
The same things that applied then apply now. Yes, houses are expensive but you can still do what we did.
My DD and her b/f both work in London and wanted to live near good transport links in Zone Two. After a year of searching and many flat viewings they finally acknowledged that they couldn't compete with oligarchs and bankers and widened their search to the suburbs in a near repeat of what happened to us years ago.
The upshot is that they have bought a delightful two bedroomed house (not a flat) and have added twenty minutes to their commute. Yes, we helped a bit with their deposit (as my DH's parents did with us) but they had also saved and lived more prudently than their splurging peers because both sets of parents had urged them to save and live within their means and they had learned by example.
I think that many young folks are careless and improvident. Two young teachers joined my school staff with credit card debts of over £25,000 and both moved frequently, socialised voraciously and went on constant mini breaks to cheer themselves up, not to mention always buying food out. They looked at we property owning elders with envy not noticing that we always bought home made packed lunches and wore old, looked after clothes.
Having observed the world for many years I think that, beyond absolute poverty which cannot be helped, being poor is a condition of the mind.