No one needs to pay that much to have a home. They need to pay that much to have an apartment in the most expensive housing market in the nation. This may come

No one needs to pay that much to have a home. They need to pay that much to have an apartment in the most expensive housing market in the nation. This may come as a shock, but no one has a right to live in Monaco, or the Upper East Side, or Nob Hill, etc. You live where you can afford to live. Housing is quite affordable in the US, but it is not affordable in the most expensive areas, which are very few. Some areas are more expensive to live in than others, because if prices were lower there would be shortages -- more people would want to live in those areas than are available units. Thus prices increase until the number of people wanting to rent an apartment are equal to the number of apartments available.