...in the NE and west coasts. This isn't out of the ordinary in large cities like Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, etc.
If you limit your search to Top 10 MSAs by population, you'll see that roughly half are expensive and the other half are not. More people live in Atlanta metro than SF, Seattle, or Boston metros but housing costs are fractional vs those places. (Salaries are not equivalent to SF, but IIRC most SF companies pay ~80%+ of SF pay. 80% of SF pay is "mansion money" in most US cities.)
...in the NE and west coasts. This isn't out of the ordinary in large cities like Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, etc.
If you limit your search to Top 10 MSAs by population, you'll see that roughly half are expensive and the other half are not. More people live in Atlanta metro than SF, Seattle, or Boston metros but housing costs are fractional vs those places. (Salaries are not equivalent to SF, but IIRC most SF companies pay ~80%+ of SF pay. 80% of SF pay is "mansion money" in most US cities.)