Of course the first home purchase is a struggle all throughout history, that's a given. The difference is today, a couple, with a child, living on one 'modest' salary (av. sal in Van 2017 is $56,052) could never, ever dream of buying even a 1br condo in Vancouver, and would likely even struggle to buy a 2br within an hour drive. As I understand it, a good rule of thumb is 3x your salary gives you a rough idea of what you could afford, so you'd be looking at around 180,000 to work with if you are making something like 60,000/year. (That's assuming you have no student loans which are also disproportionately higher than they were back in the day.) Even in Surrey you're looking at 250,000+ for 2br condo... so yea. It's not about packing lunches and avoiding expensive leisure activities. Live as frugal as you want, if you're trying to buy a 2br condo in the lower mainland, your household basically needs to be bringing in six figures, or close to it. It's bananas.