Totally agree with your comments about the Bay Area screwing over people with Prop 13. I'm just amazed at how much better quality of life you get on the east coast vs the Bay Area- way more bang for the buck and also easier commutes and better public transit.

My friends who live in NYC metro area all have gorgeous estately 4bedroom 5 bathroom houses for between 500-700k in nice little commuter towns close to NYC like Rye and Stanford with simple commutes to NYC on the trains.

Whereas we make more than they do we are stuck scraping together 1.4 million for an ugly crack shack in redwood city. Seriously my wife and I looked at this piece of crap last weekend:

https://www.redfin.com/CA/Redwood-City/3452-Page-St-94063/ho...

Not only was it a mold filled fucking dump, it was located in the hood with no public transit nearby. meanwhile my friends who work in NYC are able to get something gorgeous like this for way less $$ and can walk to downtown and a train station:

https://www.redfin.com/CA/Norwalk/15203-Sylvanwood-Ave-90650...

or even if you want to get more expensive, this is still cheaper than the Redwood City dump, you get two stories, a deck and giant yard and you are right next to MetroNorth:

https://www.redfin.com/NY/Rye/200-Highland-Rd-10580/home/201...