I think you'd be stunned whom you can hire (and for how much money) in any area where a basic middle class home doesn't go for over $1m and a 500 ft^2 apartment

I think you'd be stunned whom you can hire (and for how much money) in any area where a basic middle class home doesn't go for over $1m and a 500 ft^2 apartment in soma reasonably close to offices for $2.6k/mo, ie the first $52k of pretax income is solely for rent.