But things may be turning a corner.

In the past few years house prices have typically risen more slowly than people's wages which, all things being equal, makes it easier for prospective buyers to save.

That has also changed the ratio between house prices and average incomes. Back in 2021, house prices were nearly 9 times average incomes. Today, they're 7.6 times.

And some lenders will take a smaller deposit - sometimes just 5% - which can help overcome the deposit hurdle, a key difficulty of getting on the ladder. People looking to buy can now, in some instances, get a mortgage by saving significantly less money than a few years ago.

If first-time buyers can cobble together a deposit, lenders have recently been more willing to offer larger loans and with longer repayment times. Some buyers can purchase their homes with terms lasting up to 40 years, significantly longer than the usual 25-30 years. That can help lower monthly repayments.

Crucially, too, because property prices are growing more slowly, and interest rates have fallen from their recent peak, mortgage payments relative to wages are moving back towards the long-term average.

Figures from Nationwide show that, if you were a first-time buyer in 2007, your mortgage payments were about 45% of your take-home pay. Today's first-time buyers are paying 32%. That's still above the long-run average of 30%, but it's moving in the right direction.

Smaller deposits and longer mortgage terms are not without risk, however. Those who take that route will end up paying more interest, and are vulnerable to losing money on their property if the value of their homes doesn't increase.

Ultimately, to make it as easy to get on the ladder as it was for previous generations, we need more homes.

There are moves afoot: Sir Keir Starmer's government introduced plans to streamline planning processes that can be chaotic and slow.

Reforms will also allow more homes to be built on the green belt - not something everyone agrees with.

But to really get things moving, we need to incentivise builders to commit with more confidence to building.

And whatever approach the government takes, the results will take years to come through.