There are parts of the US where houses are similarly cheap even today, problem is, no one wants to live there. People want to simultaneously live in very popular cities but also not want to pay a high rent. Both can't be true at once.
...Or can it? The solution then is to build more housing; YIMBYism, go to local government meetings and vote for YIMBYist candidates. After all, all of the NIMBY people who bought their house decades ago are there, day after day. There really is no way around this.
Anecdote is always dangerous, but 100% same here; I had housemates in the 1990s and this was entirely normal in the city I was in (DC). Come to think of it the only time before I got married I lived alone was when I rented a friend's basement for a couple of years basically as a favor to him.
So, you're saying that when interest rates first dropped mega-low, people could afford a house?
But... that's what caused the current problem, some say. Rates too low, for a decade, causing a housing bubble. It sounds to me like what you recall, was an aberration.
EDIT: Don't get me wrong. I think the bar to home ownership should be lower. But at the same time, I think it hasn't been low, for 50+ years.
In 1995, the average income in the Netherlands was €33000, and an average house (not any house, anecdotally my parents bought it for less) could be bought for €93750 at an interest rate of 7.71%.
Yeah, late 90s/00s I was an exception that I had my own apartment. All my friends had roommates. A couple really industrious ones bought a house and then had 2-3 roommates so they could afford it.
No one I knew, could afford an entire apartment to themselves!
I find it weird that people complain about not being able to rent their own entire apartment, but are in their 20s. It wasn't a thing 30 years ago!
As one advances in their career, eg in their 30s, then income tends to rise, due to experience, and better paying jobs.
San Fran is an outlier here. Literally the most expensive area on the planet, with loads of money floating around. Of course rent is crazy expensive.