How do you pay cash for a house? How does a family with regular incomes save enough to pay cash?
Live beneath your means, rent a very cheap place and save the difference or double up with family and save the difference. You’ll have paid an amount equal to the original purchase price of the home before 15 years of a 30 year note is done anyway.
So, you’ll be living in reduced circumstance for a decade or more, but being payment free for the duration of outright ownership in order to avoid 30 years of payments, the first decade of which is very heavily interest and little principal, and ultimately paying twice as much for it over time, more or less.
Deferred gratification, it’s the way things used to be done.
By not going into DEBT in the first place and living within your means or cheaper. Something too many people don’t understand, especially politicians who believe it is their duty to ENSLAVE America’s children with DEBT.