Most of my generation can't afford to buy a house. This is a fact and a meme, and some days I actually feel guilt for being an outlier. The least I can do is push back against the persistent, mostly older-generation-based idea that we're lazy and irresponsible or whatever.
Tl;dr: it was only possible because of a streak of good luck.
A large part of that luck was simply being on the older side of my cohort. I and my husband were born in 1984, so we managed to get ahead of a lot of the worst of the recession by a couple years, and then take advantage of low interest rates at just the right time.
But my luck goes much deeper than that. It's generationally built, and to have an understanding of how I came to own a house before I turned thirty, you have to go back at least a century.
I'm white, and my family has a history of being homeowners, both factors that statistically make my home ownership more likely. My working-class family immigrated here in the early 1900's, moved to the west coast (dad's side to the city, mom's side to the country) and immediately bought their own houses. They then, despite being working or middle class, had some extra wealth to help their children do things like also buy their own houses and go to college.
My parents were solidly middle class. They both worked full time to afford the small suburban house they purchased in the mid 70's, but even then, they needed some help from family members for the down payment. Which they got! Because we had a little bit of generational wealth to share around.
Having stable housing, plus raises they both got from their jobs--helped by the post-high school education their generational wealth helped them obtain-- plus finding a very affordable daycare provider --something that's rare and precious, and had retired when I was a teen, the first of many windows I slipped through before they closed-- meant they could afford to upgrade a few years later to a small rural property, which they live in to this day.
My husband's family was not quite as a privileged, but they are also white also had a history of generational property ownership.
Another big piece of luck was the unique college scholarship I received -- Being able to afford that rural property meant that I went to a specific small high school that paid many of its graduates a full-tuition scholarship to the local state university. It's worth noting that this small town had a very limited rental housing situation--meaning if someone had to move, they would likely have to move out of district--so that most of the kids who qualified for this scholarship came from home-owning families (it required a student to be in the district for, IIRC, 8 years at the time).
I once again came along at just the last possible second to really take advantage of it; After my year, the scholarship requirements became much more restrictive and limited. Had I been just a few years younger, I would not have qualified, and I'd probably still be in student debt to this day.
My extended family (using that generational wealth again) had been sending checks and bonds to us kids since we were small, so I had a small but significant savings account to dip into by the time I was eighteen, and my parents both had enough wealth to help with college expenses that weren't covered by the scholarship. Between that and my summer job, I graduated four-year university with that magical, nearly unattainable number of ZERO. Zero money in my bank account, but also zero debt. Nearly unheard of for my cohort.
Even my housing situation was lucky and set me up for success later: having stable housing my entire childhood meant I had grown up as part of a community -- I have friends and contacts all over the local area. I ended up becoming roommates with a couple of people I'd known since elementary school. Trusted and reliable roommates are worth their weight in gold, and what's more their family contacts let rent a house together for very cheap, which meant I could earn enough with my summer job to pay for rent the rest of the year, and therefore focus on study instead of working as well. Just a few years after we moved out, the landlord decided not to rent it anymore, and all over that university town, rents have skyrocketed in the last decade.
When people say that eviction is traumatic, this is part of what that means. Community members help each other in ways that are numerous, and difficult to quantify. Eviction and unstable housing destroys communities.
Anyway, back to me: I got a job with salary* and benefits right after graduation. Barely. I applied to about a dozen places, and it was the only one that called me for an interview. Most wanted the now-normal "experience in the field" or a master's or were seasonal-only and unstable. I almost passed by the booth at the job fair, assuming I wasn't qualified, but luckily, the woman who was working the booth that day was the extremely nice manager at the time. She actively encouraged me to apply. If she hadn't gone out of her way, I wouldn't have. Less than two years later, that organization changed its policies; no longer allowing not-yet-graduated to apply, and actively discouraging those with "only" a bachelors. I squeaked through yet another window that closed behind me.
Me having a salary with benefits meant that my boyfriend (and soon to be husband) could quit his dead-end job and start going to school full time, which meant after a while he could get a particular (paid!?) internship, which lead to a new job, a few years later that paid so well we moved across the state to take advantage of it.
With the help from his family for part of a down payment, and the fact that the rural area we moved to had some of the lowest land prices in the state, we bought our first house for $110k. A few years later, we would sell it for much more. Yet again, we made it just in time; We could not have afforded our house had we arrived a few years later.
But because we could, we could buy another house... barely. My husband's next job was in Portland, and housing prices were very high. It took nine months of searching to find one that fit our needs and was within a reasonable commute (two hours is reasonable, right?). And that only worked because we were able to tap into our family and friend network once again, me, my kid and dog living with my parents, while my husband lived with his friend in Portland during the week, rent -free Without that help, if we'd had to rent during that time, we would have burned through savings instead of being able to save for a down payment. We had a small child at the time, and I couldn't work because, again, affordable daycare is hard to find, and my wage wouldn't have been able to cover it or justify it. We'd be renting to this day.
The impact of childcare on society cannot be overstated. When we lived in a more rural part of the state, home ownership was more common for younger and blue collar people - part of this can be attributed to lower cost of land, but another thing I noticed is that people from there tend to stay there, near family, and therefore have free daycare. The boost this gives to people literally makes the difference between home ownership and renting.
But we finally found a house and bought it. The one we live in now. It's in a nice neighborhood with friendly neighbors, decent schools and walkable to some businesses. It's three bedroom, 1.5 bath, and has a backyard for my garden and the dog. It's not extravagant, and it's old and needs a lot of work, but we did it. We're livin' the American dream. Barely; Just one year after purchase, our house had increased in value so much we never could have afforded it had we tried to move later than we did. Yet another window closed behind us.
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*Funny story, just a couple months ago I was reminiscing with my husband about my first "grown up job", and how it had "paid so well", and I was like, "I don't remember exactly, what was my salary back then, like $50k? (a number that had been rattling around in my head because it's roughly the median income of the county I now live in)" He laughed, and was like, "um, it was barely $28k. It just felt like a lot because of how poor we were."
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Some sources:
The Great Recession, education, race, and home ownership
Pew Research: How young adulthood today compares with prior generations
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