I think you're failing to account for taxes and other things out here. At $100K+ year, someone out in the bay area will likely see only 64% of that in their paychecks. So by that rule, they'd have to find somewhere to live that cost them no more than $1230 per month.

In the bay area, I'd say 1.5 ($1846) weeks to 2 ($2461) weeks of pay is a more realistic number.

The only people I know that have rent/mortgage that is 1 week's take-home pay either make significantly more than $100K per year or have split the rent between multiple occupants/families.

Being a single person in the Bay Area, or a couple with one income earner is not an easy task when you consider those figures.

These numbers seemed way off to me. When I was making $80k, I thought $1700 was a stretch, I can't even imagine paying $2250.

Here In NYC, the rule of thumb is 40x your monthly rent to get salary to qualify (so $2250 would mean $90k salary.) I guess it's different in SF?

In the past century, in the US, people spent approximately 1/3 of their income on housing.

Its been years since I did that analysis, and I can't find it anymore so I don't know if it was 1/3 of pre or post tax, but I do remember that it was remarkably consistent over time.

You are right about responsible spending numbers. Tech workers making $80k-ish in SF can't really afford to live in the Mission, SoMa, South Beach etc. WITHOUT roommates. There just aren't any 1-beds for less than $2500 - $3000 in the Mission right now.

"most likely you can afford to live here"

Seems like a good enough qualifier. Especially since these are median prices, so cheaper rents are to be found.

not actually. SF is nuts.

>SF is nuts.

True: but it can stop being nuts, or at least be less nuts, whenever voters want it to be: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... . SF's housing price problem is entirely self-inflicted, even if many people seem to treat it as some law of nature.