I think it might be right, because while most of us tech folks on HN would be living in nicely kept old-school buildings or in new construction, most of SF is quite poor and might be living in areas like Mission or Excelsior and Bayview, basically SE of the city.

I've seen "low" rents there, but you get to live in a rough looking neighborhood and its not very clean or safe.

To be fair, if you're making 170-240k base you can easily afford 3-4k per month rent to live in a nicer building. People who are in relationships can stretch this even further, not to mention the RSUs/options.

Also, people live all the way down to SJ and then up the east bay. Rents in SJ are like 2500/mo for a single bedroom in a newer building, but its not that great of an area tbh. In mid-peninsula its comparable to SF rents because it is really nice, safe, and you get a lot more families. There are no homeless and barely any crime there, and SF is just 20-30 min away.