This. When we bought our first house in 1987, we were approved for twice what we wanted (and ended up getting a mortgage for). We were both engineers, so decent salaries, but we were 23 and 24, both had student loans (I had a LOT of them!), a car loan, credit card debt, and had been married less than 6 months.
I also don't think a lot of people think through the associated costs of buying a house. Even though we furnished ours in "early college student", it seemed like every weekend, we had to buy more stuff for the house. From appliances to yard tools to paint, there was always stuff we needed.