I could have (should have) bought a house before the pandemic but I wasnt quite ready yet. Now housing affordability is so bad I have to save multiple hundreds

I could have (should have) bought a house before the pandemic but I wasnt quite ready yet. Now housing affordability is so bad I have to save multiple hundreds of thousands more dollars to afford the same house in 2019. That's on top of all my other expenses like rent also skyrocketing. I make more money than ever and am probably close to my peak earnings yet I feel poorer than ever.