You gotta be mobile. Everything changes so fast now. Buying a house and waiting for it to ROI in 20 years? Ain't no-one got time for this shit.
If I was young and single and had to do it all over again, I'd either live out of an RV or mobile tiny home. Pay it off. Rent-to-own or buy the property it sat on.
Then once everything was all paid off, either sell the RV/tiny home for profit and build another house on the same property, or rent out / AirBnB the tiny home and build or buy another house somewhere else.
I would keep doing this until I had a completely paid off house on the property that I wanted to retire on.