Indeed, someone making a 'normal wage' nowadays can never save up enough 15-20k for an average home. I was 'lucky' enough to sell my soul to the govt, so I got a nice VA loan with no down payments. I was also 'smart' enough to get a car far more expensive than I could 'afford' that i put double payments on for two years. That gave me enough credit to actually get a decent VA loan.
I managed to save up 20k to buy my first house making 30k a year. One of the ways I did it was by not buying an expensive car, stupidly thinking I needed to, to get good credit to buy a house.