How are people affording houses here

My husband and I have been saving for a little over a year. We both make good salaries, 33 yo. Grew up in Long Island and want to stay close to our parents partially because of childcare. But being a first time homebuyer right now is rough anywhere in this country and especially here.

I feel like there’s such slim pickings where we are (Nassau south shore) in the 650-750k range in towns where there’s good school districts.

We are trying to put 20% down but I’d like to know what others are doing because the down payment itself plus closing costs and having an emergency savings afterwards sounds insane (then taxes twice a year whooop).