> If you were looking at living in the Bay Area long term it would be a different story. Agreed. > In SLC as a software engineer if you live reasonably frugal

> If you were looking at living in the Bay Area long term it would be a different story. Agreed. > In SLC as a software engineer if you live reasonably frugally you can own a decent family home outright in under 7 years. Sure, and that's attractive. But by contrast, after 7 years here with a progressing career trajectory, I'd have enough money to buy a home in cash almost anywhere in the world. Given that we haven't decided where we want to settle down yet (I'm rather partial to Barcelona...) that cash is more valuable to me than a paid-off home in eg. Salt Lake. To repeat a theme that I think we can all agree on: these decisions are highly personal and include a lot of tradeoffs, and will naturally look different to different people even in nominally similar situations.