I'm going against the grain here but I don't think it's as impossible as most people are saying. I'm 34 and bought my 1st house, alone, aged 27, without any financial help from parents, at the time never having earned more than £21k.
I have 2 younger siblings, both of whom also bought before they were 30, one alone, one with a partner (but together they were earning less than 22k as her bf was still an apprentice at the time and she was on minimum wage so I think it's relevant).
Nearly all of my female friends, acquaintances, and work colleagues (say about 30 people) and all of both sisters' friends (another 60 odd) owned their first houses well before they were 30. Most bought with partners but quite a lot bought alone. None are on what I think of as amazing salaries, in fact many are quite low.
How?
Mix of:
- Saving HARD for a long time (the way I did it)
- in comparatively cheap areas (outside of SE but still near major cities)
- Getting small ish amount (I don't know anyone who has had thousands but a lot had, say, 3-10 grand) from parents.
- Working abroad (e.g. dubai) for a few years to save fast
- Living with parents before buying, or at the very least in very grotty houseshares
- Buying cheap properties first - everyone always asks how anyone on an average wage is supposed to be able to afford the average house price, but of course they arent - if you're a single person getting your first house you aren't supposed to be aiming towards the bottom of the market, not the middle!
- Didn't have kids until they had bought their first house (probably the biggest commonality between all of them!)
Don't know anyone who has bought without doing at least one, usually several, of these. Living with parents is probably the most common - of my friends of a similar age (and by this I mean my work colleagues, old school friends, uni friends, friends I know through hobbies) the only 2 who are still renting are those who moved out aged 18 and, after a few years in house shares, rented nice flats or houses either alone or with just their partner. Even if you can't move back home, that's the difference between a few hundred quid a month for a room in a shared house, and around a grand a month.
I do think a lot of people exaggerate how completely impossible it is to be financially secure alone. It's definitely hard, and has got harder (particularly re: house prices), just over the last 2 years, but, for example, according to this
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23234033
If you can save a £10k deposit (which isn't hugely excessive) and £1k a month mortgage (again, perfectly doable, particularly if you are earning the UK full time average of £31k (median) or £38k (mode) - you can afford to buy a 1 bed house/flat in 89% of the UK. If you want a 2 bed its still 73%. If you can increase your deposit to what it says is the national average (although I agree it's high, although I had close to that), then "96% of the United Kingdom that has housing you can afford."