Respectfully, I disagree with > The cost of housing reflects the opportunity you find in the area. The cost of housing reflects the market for housing which i

Respectfully, I disagree with > The cost of housing reflects the opportunity you find in the area. The cost of housing reflects the market for housing which is driven by many factors, including local opportunity. Again, with all due respect, the tone deafness isn't on my part (and I don't ask for 5x salary). It is on recruiters calling me up, telling me how wonderful it is there, then offering salaries on par with, if not below what I am making or being offered elsewhere. I have to help them understand the very real aspect of opportunity cost, the huge negative impact, and that if they want someone like me to view this as an attractive offer, they are going to need to think about these issues. Put another way, the symptom I alluded to is one where you wind up pricing pretty much all of the talent out of the area. Which, as the invisible hand of the market often does, fixes the problem for you. Are some people willing to lower their quality of life, live in a dorm with N other people, in a space they cannot call their own, for exorbitant rates? Yes, of course. The article was about that. Is this a stable scenario? I doubt it. I could be wrong, but I've seen too many of these cycles to buy into "housing prices always rise." Or, "the reason it is so expensive is due to opportunity." The reason it is so expensive is due to rent-seeking behavior, driven in part but not in whole by opportunity. At what point will people say "no more"? That is the question I find interesting.