Hello hikevin
Best wishes for your future.
When I was in my first job after school, I bought a two bedroom house in a low-socio-ec area a few miles north of the Brisbane LGA. It was about 60% of the median Bris price. Everyone thought I was nuts, but it was so worth it.
I did buy jointly with the boyfriend (upgraded to Hubby a few years later). We were both on very low incomes, probably add the two together to make one accountant. When you buy your house, you can take in a boarder to help with the costs.
The lack of nightlife was no issue for us, being busy spending all our spare cash on the mortgage and improvements (dont over-capitalise like we did). We usually fell asleep at 8pm because we spent many weekends gardening, painting or laying concrete. After eight years this property was paid out and we went looking for the "real" home, where we still live.
By buying something small, easily affordable and which very kindly more than doubled value in the time we were there, we had a substantial deposit for the median-priced home we bought afterwards in a far more desirable suburb a lot closer to the CBD. You can buy that same place now for under $300K. It is a 40 minute express train ride to the CBD, 5 minutes walk to the primary school, shops, public pool and the station. The traffic and noisy neighbours were annoying but you get those everywhere. These days there is air-con and we can close all the windows.
I trust you will have the same positive experience we had.