than now even though it wasn't too long ago. I made under $150k (well under it for most of it) but hard to save. We almost pulled the trigger up in Concord area (we were renting in the South Bay) for $600,000 on a house that would need some work in 2016 and it felt like a big stretch. Now it would be even more.

I felt like you needed a really well paying job like southbaycoug mentioned or needed decent equity from your job. A lot of the people who I knew that stayed and bought a house had one or both of those.