>Granted, the home prices were 1/3 what it is now.

This is the problem. Rates are high, but prices are still high. Maybe they'll come down enough to make payments affordable at these rates, but that's yet to be seen nationally.

We bought a house last year. To get the same payment today, the loan would have to be for $130,000 less. We probably could have saved another $25,000 in that time (difference in rent vs our total housing payment, plus repairs we've done to the house this year). There are no houses in our area for $105,000 less than what we paid that are anywhere near the same quality. Homes in that price range are either 2br condos, or are literal complete gut jobs. And that budget wouldn't leave anything left over for major rehab, so we either couldn't buy today, would be forced into a living situation we didn't want, or we'd have to find a way to pay a mortgage and rent while we did enough repairs to live in the gut job.