Without taking away from the reality of housing costs, the long-term chart [1, chart is a year old but looking for trends] suggests other explanations. In particular, the average of first-time buyers was 35, up from 30 as recently as 2010. That's a bad trend.
The overall average appears to be driven by people who have bought homes before. Anecdotally, the Boomers I know bought houses well into retirement where their parents typically made their last home purchase in their 30s. I am less concerned about housing turnover among older people.
A lot of never-purchased-home-before people have money but still don't buy a home. Why? What happens that causes people who have money and can pay to finally buy a home?
I'm asking, what causes people to buy a house for the first time?
For upper middle class people the answer is probably having a baby, so you can see why if people are having babies later in life when their incomes are higher, prices rise.
but the upper middle class is relatively small, depending on how you define upper middle class. Nationally, one might say the 15% who are below the 95th percentile (but locally is what matters for the purpose of buying property, and maybe "upper middle" is 60% to 95% of the local ranking).
The overall average appears to be driven by people who have bought homes before. Anecdotally, the Boomers I know bought houses well into retirement where their parents typically made their last home purchase in their 30s. I am less concerned about housing turnover among older people.
1 - https://www.axios.com/2023/11/20/american-housing-market-old...