I wouldn't get too comfortable with the "easier to build" bit, either - Seattle has a strong far-left presence, and as we've seen in SF it's very easy for homeowners to convince them (against all reason) that more housing means higher prices and get them to start blocking new construction across the board (whoever thought up the "100% affordable or not at all!" bit is a genius at playing progressives like a fiddle, and is probably making a killing on a ton of SF property). Meanwhile, the office buildings that are actually luring more people to the city and driving prices up keep getting built, because they're not in the neighborhoods that NIMBYs care about.

I'd leave Seattle on the list.

In SF/SV, the high housing prices extend far enough out from SF to cover almost everything that is in reasonable commute distance. Same for Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, and San Jose.

In Seattle, prices are high or getting there in Seattle, Redmond, and Bellevue, but there is still reasonable housing between Seattle and Tacoma, and across the Sound over in Kitsap county. If you can get a work schedule that lets you miss the heavy commute hours it should be reasonably possible to get affordable housing without too bad a commute.

true this. Average sale price in seattle metro for march was just shy of 700k. The city is trying to be pretty aggressive about building but if you want to live in the city you are going to pay a lot. That being said, if you dont mind commuting you can get a nice place that is affordable(30 minutes commute to the city).