Cupertino is an hour away Santa Cruz beaches. 3 hours away from skiing (or boating) at lake tahoe. 1 hour away from one of the best NBA teams (GSW). 30 minutes away from Stanford. 1 hour away from Berkeley. Some of the best average temperatures in the country.
Maybe they live in a "shitbox fixer", maybe they don't.
You might consider that people like and care about those other properties though.
a lot of hour drives away from everything? London or Tokyo it is not.
> Maybe they live in a "shitbox fixer", maybe they don't.
I was being rather generous at $2M on a $300k salary. Let's just assume the spouse makes that much too. Where do you place the odds of getting a nice house at, in that area? Of a similar quality that would run around $200-400k in the rest of the country. It's the suburbs. You're going to be inside your home more than you would in a city.
> You might consider that people like and care about those other properties though.
The point is $300k in SV isn't living large. You save more for retirement or to move out. Great. But you still have to leave to realize that benefit. You're just planning for some tomorrow that usually never comes for most people.
That's odd, my impression is that a lot of people go to the Bay, save a lot, then leave.
Do we have any statistics on this?