Also mortgage interest is tax deductible.

Nah, people know those "common" pieces of wisdom. What people bringing them up often miss is, they're also unachievable for most people. Life isn't a MMORPG where you can check out of progression at any moment and spend some time grinding to build up savings. Life has a clock to it that doesn't stop, and most can't afford falling behind it much.

You're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you save up an emergency fund instead of paying a downpayment then you're spending money on rent that you could have in retirement, and it's not like rent is consistently cheaper than mortgage payments anyway so if you can save up when renting you can save up when owning.

So the gamble is, do you spend 2 years saving up for 6 months of income as a buffer and send tens of thousands of dollars down the drain in the meantime, or do you roll the dice and hope nothing bad happens in the next 5 or so years? The people who end up in the best position will be those who take the second option, and most of the time it will work out.

Emergency fund is useless when expenses are 5k/mo, and that's just sitting in my room working in 15C with my food costs and expenses as low as can be. Burned through 40k already.

I'm gonna predict that in a 10-year trend, the house price inflation will have continued. Unless you could save faster than the bubble, you still wouldn't be getting/keeping a house in 10 years.

High transaction fees on sales. Typically at least 5% in US, not sure about Canada.

Also don't forget taxes, insurance, mortgage interest needs to get paid while house is in your hands. Most mortgages have lots of interest during the first few years.