There's a huge tendency, especially on MN where so many people seem to come from wealthier backgrounds, to be unaware of living standards in previous generations. 'Oh, you could buy a house for 2k'...well, maybe, but many actually LIVED in the sort of conditions most would be horrified by now.
My father was brought up in a tiny end of terrace, single-glazed, no central heating like the majority of houses. Outside toilet. Holidays' were day trips to Blackpool occasionally. But hey, they owned their house. Whoopty-do.
My stepfather grew up in a deprived area of Scotland. The street shared a toilet (and yes, that was a thing, I checked). I don't know what their rent was, obviously very low in comparison, but who lives like that now?
My mother grew up in a tenant farmhouse, again no central heating, single glazing, no modern insulation, but they had the luxury of an indoor toilet.
I was born in the early 70s. Still no double glazing, but at least central heating was becoming more common. You still got ice on the inside of the windows in a cold winter. Most of the appliances we all take for granted now were more basic and not altogether safe. Only rich people owned a TV outright, the rest of us rented, and they had a tendency to overheat. For this reason, 70s TVs had the nickname, 'curtain-burners'. That decade saw electricity rationing for businesses, resulting in the 3 day week at the beginning of 1974. Most of that decade was overshadowed by strikes and industry closure.
By the 80s, following the loss of much industry, not just the pit closures, swathes of the country were in poverty. Unemployment in the early 80s was high.
The 80s is now thought of as a time of excess and success, but the reality wasn't quite as it appeared. As others have pointed out, it was the boom and bust era. High interest rates, fluctuating prices. Some were, yes, 'lucky'. Others weren't. Still, the standard of general living was improving. Most people by now, even in the poorer areas, had indoor plumbing and central heating was more common. But a lot of people lived on credit, had been offered mortgages by the bank that were beyond their means and we're finding out that Thatcher's home-ownership ambition for the nation wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
In the 90s, my DH and I bought our first home and, yes, we were lucky. We bought in a window of a stable market, but, as someone else mentioned, endowments were being pushed heavily. We were lucky, ours just made it, and we only had a part endowment, but I remember work colleagues who bought in the early 90s in floods of tears because they reached the point where their mortgage should have been paid off and they still owed the money.
Today, the housing market is hard, yes. Very hard. But in comparison to my 'boomer' parents who apparently had it all handed to them on a plate, living standards are far higher. Very few of us would accept living the way a lot of boomers from average/low income houses grew up and started their own families in. And part of the reason for that is due to the battles fought and hours worked decades ago, at a time when there was much less flexibility in the workplace, the pay gap between women and men was much wider, you could still openly be denied a job because you were female, and nobody gave a shit about your personal circumstances/mental health at work.
My mother had to lie and say she was sick if she had to stay home to look after me.
So yeah, my parents can have an easy life because, frankly, it WAS harder for them in a multitude of ways most young people frankly don't understand. My parents don't have a million pound house, they have a modest bungalow in the North East, but if they did have a big house, etc, I wouldn't begrudge them because I know what they really lived through to get there.
From their perspective, they gave us a better life than they had. And I agree with them.