Well DC isn't "Bay Area or Manhattan", so you're sidestepping my argument by jumping from one location to another. There I guess you'd want to be in Arlington

Well DC isn't "Bay Area or Manhattan", so you're sidestepping my argument by jumping from one location to another. There I guess you'd want to be in Arlington or Alexandria, less than 1000 feet from a Metro stop. DC itself, at least the residential parts that don't need a car, is far from decent. In any case it clearly isn't "Bay Area or Manhattan". Rent prices normally track house prices. Except during the steep parts of a bubble and crash, you can compute one from the other. One expense is thus a proxy for the other. I'm pretty sure your "very nice place" isn't so nice. First of all, rentals are fundamentally inferior. Second of all, I doubt you are getting equivalent size. (indoor space, parking spots, land) Third of all, the cheap parts of cities are horribly violent. In any case, I never said 20x would apply to DC.