Yes, I bet that in the near future, a modest house will cost $20 million, Bitcoin will be $100K per coin and Facebook will be a $10 trillion company. Poor SV suckers will spend their lives paying off their $20 million shoeboxes with their $500K per year salaries. Meanwhile I will be living in some exotic place in a mansion which I will have bought for $200K. I like where the future is going.

Yeah I'm in Southern California and I could buy a primary but I'd have to spend at least $1.25M for a small place where I'd want to live. It just doesn't make sense though. I rented a $2M house last year for $4.3k/mo. It's just way cheaper to rent at that level. You're either renting the house or renting the money (mortgage).

I've been buying investment properties for $500-600k each that cash flow instead. I don't want to rely on appreciation and I don't want to come out of pocket to cover the debt. The cash flow offsets your liability and improves debt to income so you can get approved for buying more cash flowing homes (once you can show income). So you should be able to buy a home at least every 2 years.

I may buy a primary if the market corrects, but otherwise I'm perfectly fine renting my primary. Too many people get infatuated with the idea of owning a primary residence. If you live in an expensive area, it's best to earn the higher salary there and rent, invest elsewhere and move somewhere cheaper later.

    I bet that in the near future, a modest house will cost $20 million, Bitcoin will be $100K per coin and Facebook will be a $10 trillion company

One of these things is not like the other.

I've been closely tracking Bay Area real estate for the last 7 years, and assuming it was kept in good condition (original owners), 5 years ago it would've sold for over $1m. It has 4 bedrooms, is in an amazing school district, and in a generally good location.

The extent of the upgrades to it make the sale price a little high, but somewhat inline with pricing in similar neighbourhoods across the bay, e.g. https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/15561231_zpid/37.49241...

That's just not true. They bought this house for $1M 13 years ago. 5 years ago it was worth 1.7M. It's all on public record. It's not overpriced, there is just so low capacity because no one is selling due to property tax prop 13.

Milpitas had a huge dumping yard, and used to smell really bad. Houses were still in the ballpark of $1 - $1.5 million last year.

It think its just that some people get a lot of money through stock options that they spend this way.