Should have known I couldn't mention housing prices without comparisons to the literally-the-most-extreme outlier bay area. The DC area isn't geographically constrained the same way, doesn't have the same concentration of hyper wealth, has immediately-adjacent jurisdictions with regulatory setups more amenable to development to California, and a much better/more extensive transit system. Salaries for your typical fed or consultant here don't come close to the engineering compensation in the bay for lower level employees.

Also, it's not $425k for a single family home. It's $425k for a 60-70 year old brick or cinderblock townhome/duplex between 800-1000 sqft that was constructed as WW2-boom housing.