Really senior engineers can certainly make more; 500k for a top 10% performer.
For reference I just got my tax statement for last year and I’m over 300k.
More likely, you can afford a $1m mortgage on a double income of $150k which, IMO, is a lot more common.
The reality is that a lot of people (single and married with kids) rent with the hopes they will be able to afford a mortgage.
Maybe a different region would have better balance, even at lower pay. I know people who own a newly constructed, large house with a garden, two cars, and raise kids in Romania on a meagre salary compared to yours. In the Bay area most of the profit and hard work goes to pay the exorbitant housing prices - just making the landlords and constructors rich.
Reminds me of Andrew Ng who expects "70-90 hours a week" from his employees, and is talking up "importance of velocity" with his new fund. That's 15 hours of work per day and one day off per week. Crazy! Why bother to do that, it would be a disaster for balanced life. (https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/30/andrew-ng-officially-launc...)