[apohn]

> I am not aware of how expensive Bay area housing is - but you can find pretty good houses an hour from NYC at < 500-600K

I'm not trying to get in an argument, but just want to add some perspective. The quality of house varies quite greatly at 500-600K in a 60 minute range of Manhattan. Property taxes in the areas outside NYC are among highest in the nation. This was one of the reasons I left the NYC area recently - we saw so many 600K+ houses that badly needed to be renovated. The property taxes didn't help make the case. Lots of people want to live close to public transportation with a 75 minute or less commute.

I know somebody's going to look on Zillow and say "Look, I just found a 500K house in NJ that's awesome" Unlike some other parts of the country, the quality of area/house varies a lot in the NYC area. I wouldn't recommend deciding any home is awesome unless you've actually seen it in real life!

[asnyc]

Yes indeed, quality varies a lot - there are lots of options, need to search around. I believe this will be true of every area in US

[apohn]

Let me reframe.

If you want to leave the Bay Area because of the cost of living, the NYC area may not be the answer. The price of a home ($/sqfoot) may be cheaper in the suburbs of NYC than SF/SV, but property taxes are extremely high (e.g. > 2%) in areas that are commutable (unless you think 2+ hours each way is a good commute) to NYC. You may also end up in a situation where you need a car to commute to the train station, you pay for parking at the train station, and then you have one or more passes (e.g. Subway + Train Pass) to get to your job. So your total monthly living costs may be close to your costs of owning a home in the bay area.