[VLM]

I talked to a google recruiter a couple years ago and if I took the job and moved to mountain view, my current lifestyle of "3 bedroom ranch house with two car garage and spacious lawn" would be utterly impossible, so goodbye.

This was very close to the national peak of the housing bubble, things may have gotten better since then.

[seanp2k2]

It's pretty much impossible to find even the crappiest home here for under half a million. For what you describe, even if it's next to a freeway in a "bad" neighborhood with a crap school district, that'd be a few million easy.

[ZanyProgrammer]

The problem is that you insist on living the mid 20th century American Dream.

[lawnchair_larry]

Not really. That's current day for most of the US. It's SF that is broken.