Your point however is (less charitably) put as "I can't purchase a house where I want the house to be, with the specs that I want", which is different than not being able to afford any house anywhere.
My parents also purchased a house with modest income when I was young. But it had fraying electrical (knob & tube!), peeling paint, 1 bathroom, no A/C, a wood-burning fireplace for heat, and was 45 minutes from where they had rented/liked to live. The place had its charms, they put sweat equity into it for many years, and I think of it fondly - but it was still a huge compromise, and by today's strict lending standards was probably not even able to be financed based on hazards alone. I am sure they would have preferred to purchase a house with bay windows overlooking the ocean like they had been renting, but they could afford something that was inland and needed a lot of work. I do not think they were unique in this way - I wager a lot of 'my parents bought a house in the 80s, dad was an artisanal pencil sharpener and mom was a ferret breeder' stories are actually more like this one.
My point is, I am by default unconvinced when an otherwise seemingly successful person says they can't afford to buy, even in an expensive place like Toronto or SF. As far as I can tell it just means they haven't lowered their standards enough yet. I have compromised on every home I've bought; in fact I entered the market a lot later than I should have because as a first-timer I wasn't ready to compromise enough. That probably cost me half a mill in appreciation over the years.
I had family members who bought in “mixed income” neighborhoods in Toronto where you’d have broken piping, excessive mold in the attic, and meth heads ringing your doorbell at 2am to see if anyone’s home so they could break in. That 2 bedroom bungalow is selling for around 850k.
On top of all this houses even in Huntsville regularly close for between 50-200k over asking depending on location and the insanity of the buyer
No offense but based on this conversation I get the impression that you don’t really have enough context to comment on at the very least cost of housing in Canada.
2.5 hour commute sucks and wouldn't be long-term sustainable, but if it's what you'd have to do to get into housing it's something to consider. I know; that was my commute when I bought my first place in the bay area. I did it long enough to build equity & sweat equity, then used the profit to buy closer to work.