You should do a roadtrip! Dystopia US has some nice pockets. Affordable is all relative, of course.
It's pretty much impossible to "win" in housing unless you're investing major sweat equity, or factoring-in intangibles like satisfaction with a like-minded community or peace of mind.
I'm starting to realize housing is unwinnable. I'm lucky to have a house at all, given the US just decided "lets not build" was a good policy apparently. But like a lot of aging people I can't afford to keep it. So yeah a roadtrip is in my future, and maybe a yurt out there somewhere.
There's two sides to the coin of recognizing "un-winnability".
One is frustration, the other is a sense of peace that comes with recognizing that there's no marginal reward to trying so hard. Just avoid the obvious scams, which isn't too hard.
A third option to skirts the coin, is to really embed yourself in a local community, renting in the meanwhile. There actually are "winner" situations and good deals if you go this way, but they generally come on the back of who you know and are friendly with – variously referred to as cronyism and nepotism, but it's how humans work.