I completely agree with budgeting and watching your expenditures, but for that to be doable , the house prices have to come down enough so that saving 20% of the price would not take more than a few years…
Exmaple: if you have a family with 2 young kids, and an income of 150K (both parents with PhD,working) once you put some money away for retirement and college, you pay your rent and transportation and cars, and pay the daycare/school stuff and food and clothes there isn’t that much left to save for a downpayment…Maybe, at best, if they are really really good, 1000/month and take no vacations and no other unusual expenses like furniture or braces etc…. If they want a decent 4 bdr home with yard at ~600K, it will take them more than 10 years to save for 20% downpayment…
