[cptskippy]

> If they previously had a house in San Diego they probably aren't hurting financially.

That's not necessarily true, it really depends on when they bought their home. Housing prices in California have nearly quadrupled in the last two decades. Families that could afford a house in the 2000s are priced out of the market today. If you entered at the right time you could be paying more in property taxes than mortgage, or living paycheck to paycheck with a three figure salary.

The article says they bought it outright and used the equity from the sale of their CA home to fund the initial remodeling costs, and they've put an additional $40k into it. The reddit post says they sold their home in San Diego for $700k, which at that price is a sub 2000 sq ft ranch.

Just looking at the photos in the article, there don't appear to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovations. In fact most of the living spaces shown appear to have been done on a budget. So if we assume the kitchen was the additional $40k in renovation costs, we can assume they didn't get all that much out of their house in San Diego. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say $150k.