> mortgage rates are dirt cheap and rent versus own pricing is at parity. I think you're discounting the down payment factor. As a single engineer in SF, I cou

> mortgage rates are dirt cheap and rent versus own pricing is at parity. I think you're discounting the down payment factor. As a single engineer in SF, I could afford the monthly payment on a mortgage, but putting down 20% of a $1m house is beyond me and probably will be for a while (a few years). The other trick is concern about this being the peak or close to the peak of the housing bubble in SF - so if I drop that kind of cash into a house, the market might collapse leaving me with property worth substantially less than what I'm paying.