They are possible if you’re willing to make some sacrifices like your parents did. I guarantee they were hearing gunshots outside at the time they bought the house, and you were probably hearing two soccer moms bickering about lululemon and peloton bikes at the time they sold it.

I bought my apartment in a neighborhood that wasn’t that great at the time for $160,000 10 years ago and it’s worth $400,000 now. Pretty good return on that $32,000 down payment no doubt, but it would have been even better if I, like your parents, accepted the risk of getting mugged on a daily basis and bought a similar property in a shittier neighborhood (at the time) for $70,000. Now, if I wasn’t willing to make any sacrifices and was unwilling to settle for anything less than a fancy, trendy neighborhood, I’d be slumming it up with roommates to this day with no money in the bank.