I was lucky enough to get into the housing market 20 years ago.
As was I! - 25 actually - but it got sold after I came to Finland to help cover my mum's expenses due to cancer. That same house now is about 3x as well... crazy.
As supply has been screwed with by investors buying extra properties, they have compounded the problem by converting them into air BnBs, effectively taking them off the market for renters.
This has been a massive issue in Australia from what I hear. Renters can't afford to rent or buy, and there are heaps of empty apartments, making their money being rented out a couple days a week.
Entry level salaries are probably close to what they were 20 years ago and prices on homes and rentals are at least 4x.
This was an interesting article from a few months back:
A house used to cost the same as 6000 slabs of VB in the 1980s, so buying a house meant giving up buying 6000 slabs of VB. That’s a six-pack every day for 65 years! That might seem like a lot of beer, but what you give up now is even more: a house costs the same as 16,000 slabs of VB!
"Slab of VB" = 24 pack of Victoria Bitter beer.