This is more than accessible to tech workers at public companies. A 150k income is going to be ~7k a month after taxes. Tier one employers pay significantly more than that to new grads, and pretty much everyone reputable in the bay pays more than that to experienced people. So yeah, single income can absolutely afford a home.
Obviously someone with student loans can't do that as quickly, but otoh a dual income family could put $2M down in cash before they turn 30 given moderate success. (Or another way of looking at this is a moderately successful mid-20s SWE can bank 100k/yr after all expenses and retirement savings, without budgeting strictly. That's ridiculous)
A SWE in their 20s banking $100k a year? Must be nice.
Google, Amazon (and subsidiaries like Twitch), Microsoft (and subsidiaries like Github), Facebook, Linkedin, Stripe, Square, Lyft, Uber, Snap, Oracle, Apple, Dropbox, Box, Nvidia, Twitter, Slack, Salesforce, ByteDance and a slew of others. And I'm including only companies that pay out 150K in cash equivalents (cash + annual bonus + liquid stock) in that list.
After a promotion, that list probably doubles in size.
> What new grad making $150k is going to qualify for a loan on a million dollar house?
I don't think I ever suggested this. What I did suggest is that someone who graduates at 22 or 23 (and, with the big caveat that they do so with little to no existing debt), gets a 150K starting comp, and has even a modest amount of career growth will be able to save a whole bunch of money in their late twenties.
> A SWE in their 20s banking $100k a year? Must be nice.
Like I said, its absolutely ridiculous.
At a million dollars you need a fairly large household income to afford luxuries beyond your house. Even putting down 25% on the house with a good 30 year fixed rate loan you'd be looking at just under $4k a month for your mortgage. After utilities you're easily over $4k a month. If you scrimped you could maybe keep your other household costs under $500 a month (realistically you're looking at $1k). So you're looking at a take-home of $4.5-5k to just stay afloat.
That's all for a shitty house that needs work, doesn't have great insulation, and doesn't have a lot of usable space. If you're 30 when you buy they place you only have to keep that income until you're 60 or hope that you build a ton of equity in the meantime and cash out.
That's the minimum for most of the SFBA. There's plenty of places with even more outrageous prices for shitty houses. To buy a house for not completely outrageous prices you need to go pretty far afield with hour plus commutes.
Treating yourself to ramen once a week is not a luxury.