I'm not complaining since I earn a good salary as a programmer and our apartment is in a well-managed complex in a nice neighborhood, but it would be easy to spend more and difficult to find something substantially less in the same general area.
But it does serve to confirm the article's thesis that California is becoming increasingly bifurcated between a high-paid "knowledge class" and a de facto servant underclass, largely composed of illegal immigrants (e.g., Irvine's landscaped parks and streets are beautifully maintained by an army of gardeners, but there's no way those gardeners can afford to live in Irvine). The traditional middle class is being squeezed out, and long term I do not believe that's healthy for California as it's too reminiscent of the very wide disparity of incomes that I've seen in the third world.
The basic problem with California and real estate can be summarized by the graph at the start of "A Tale of Two Townhouses:" http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o... . Notice how high San Francisco, LA, and San Diego are; in many places along coastal California, it is effectively impossible to build substantial numbers of new building at sufficient vertical heights to meet demand.
Econ 101: if you restrict supply while demand is still very high... you get price increases (and sprawl, that other ubiquitous problem in California). This is one of the major stories of California over the last two decades, and one that gets less attention than it deserves.
Come to think of it, I think I'll submit "A Tale of Two Townhouses" to HN.
Opportunities come and go, and committing to live in the same place for 20 years is a huge risk if that place dries up and someplace else starts to boom.
It was last listed at $386K before the listing was finally removed.
All we can really say is that in the last 50 years, home ownership was a better buy than renting. I don't know anyone confident about their 20 year forecasts regarding California Real Estate right now...
As for me - I'm renting a room for $750/month.
I don't think that I would ever have come out even if I hadn't sold my Condo. The key thing to realize, is that sometimes the decision isn't "Buy or Rent", it sometimes (in my case) is Downsize+Rent. Gives you flexibility + reduced costs.
