$300k/yr is nowhere near big leagues to buy a home and raise a family in the Bay area, just fyi. It's more like a comfortable single income where you aren't worried about paying rent or going out to dinner.
You try and raise a family on a mere $300k in SF/SV, you're one layoff or recession away from being completely screwed.
The majority of housing stock listed for sale in SV is being pulled off the market in a panic. I'm not sure what exactly it means, but if I had to guess, I think it's due to a huge reduction in demand.
No one is buying, so sellers don't want their homes to be listed as unsold for a lengthy period of time. Eventually, people will need to sell, and then we'll see a race to the new bottom for the market, which might still be incredibly unaffordable for most.
$300k will take you further then, but the issue will be whether companies will keep paying engineers that much when housing prices no longer warrant it.
There’s plenty of 3BR houses in the east bay for less than a million, which puts your mortgage+property taxes at around $60k, which is totally doable at even half the salary you’re talking about.
Half that salary? That's $150k, or after taxes, about ~$8k/mo. or $3k/mo for everything else after your alloted $5k/mo. Yes, people can survive on a lot less, but why in the world would you want to live in the Bay area just to eek by on such a paltry net outcome without nearly enough to set aside for the rainy day that's coming soon.
And more importantly, that I think the vast majority of SF/SV kids seem to forget is, what happens when your cushy job disappears? How long can you survive dropping $5k/mo for a house that you could be paying $700/mo in a small town.
The MID is also worth much less because of the higher standard deduction and the SALT cap.