[ricardobayes]

Wow. Sorry to have this takeaway from your story, but HCOL areas really don't make sense anymore. I recently calculated mortgage for a really, really nice house in coastal Spain. 5 bedrooms, 3200 sqft, pool, garage the whole shebang. The mortgage came to 1300/month if you put down the minimum.

[elipsey]

Agree. I just bought a house outside of the bay area. :) OTHO, if I didn't live there I probably couldn't have saved for the house...