Re: Trumpty Dumpty went off his rocker
"Yep, it's crazy. Last time I looked at LA, 'normal' family homes cost $2-4m putting them waay out of reach of normal families. "
Good grief, where are you shopping for a home? Bel-air? California is more expensive than many states, but it also varies a whole lot. You also have to look at the TCO. Some states have such high property taxes that a low purchase price isn't helpful. Especially since that tax goes on even after you've paid off the home.
Areas with rent control can be doomed to losing housing for rent. Those properties aren't saleable as nobody wants to buy them at market rate and then be handcuffed by how much rent they can collect to pay the mortgage, much less upkeep and improvements.
Maybe if real world math was taught in schools, people would see what I see when headhunters want me to re-locate to Silicon Valley. The cost of living is so high that even a salary that pays for a reasonable standard of living gets taxed to pieces. Many of the companies there fail to make it out of an investor funded startup phase and that can often end precipitously. One week you have a job and the next week you don't. You do have a lease on your housing that you will need to try to get out of and everything is super expensive. If you don't find another job in short order, you better have the money to move (in the dead of night if you can't break the lease).
If you can't afford a home, you aren't likely going to be able to afford the rent in the area either. Those landlords have mortgages to pay, upkeep to pay for and want to see a profit on top. You need to be able to work out if the salary you can earn will pay enough to live where you are or might move to. A job that pays $150,000/yr sounds grand, but not if you wind up having to put things on a credit card every month to live nearby. No holidays, no new car, no eating out, etc. I've run numbers with very similar salaries and it made zero sense to take the job. In other parts of the US, I could live like a king on that much money.