We bought with no help from anyone, in London, saved hard to get the 10% deposit. Lived in small room in unfashionable place with long journeys to work while we saved up the deposit. Bought in an unfashionable area before having a child. Moved in with virtually no furniture.
My child has been in a position to buy since they were 18, before I could consider it, but has chosen not to do so because they want something much fancier than their parents had when starting out.
Friends with children outside London are buying properties, pre-children. Some have parental help, some using Help to Buy. Several are buying before their parents did. In London it's more of a struggle, much of London is now foreign owned and bought by money launderers.
"At the last count, there was some £35bn of Russian money alone sloshing through London’s jurisdiction. With housing supposedly in dire supply, planners have allowed whole streets in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea to become ghost towns, rows of empty townhouses and blocks of flats. The impact on London’s property market of this “buy-to-leave” is becoming stark. Having lived in London all my life, I find its status as the world’s financial funk-hole sickening. Yet it leaves London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, as relaxed as it left his predecessor, Boris Johnson.
Other countries require foreigners, at the very least, to pay local income and realistic property taxes. London’s oligarchs pay little more than £2,000 a year to their councils. Residents of Manhattan pay two, three or even 10 times that, and even the richest condominiums tend to require owners to be resident. Other world cities ban foreigners from owning, leasing or at least failing to occupy property – among them Berlin, Singapore and Hong Kong. Australia bans incomers from buying in Sydney and Melbourne. "
You know you are one of many - but some of that group could buy if they chose to make sacrifices instead of expecting everything handed to them on a plate. And you are being distracted from the real cause of the problems.