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.
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.