[devonkim]

For the amount of profit I would have made off of merely buying a house and holding for a few years if I had stayed in the Bay Area, I would be able to buy most of the houses I'd consider with just cash. You really can't get that kind of ludicrous cash making opportunity if 1. your ceiling on pay in your profession is capped firmly leaving you insufficient investment capital 2. your local economy is not booming with lots of investors to drive up asset prices. Nobody's going to buy a middle class house in rural North Carolina and leave within 6 years with $350k+ residual profit, but that's fairly common for those I know in the Bay Area and NYC that bought before 2010.

Whether these things are sustainable is one thing, but NYC and SF have always been expensive areas to live and at the same time among the best chances to grow a career in most fields. Otherwise, there'd be little growth in cities. It's not like the millions of people in urban areas are all stupid or too young to think about families and renting v. buying.