Yep, every time I sign a check for Bay Area rent, I consider how I'm in the wrong industry, since the land owners have to do very little to continue to extract rent from their one-time-purchase of land (I know, tax is a thing too, but pales in comparison to the returns they must be getting on the land).

I'm not super interested in buying a house here, since >half a million for a tiny spot of land in the suburbs with a tiny 2-bedroom house that needs major repairs is absurd to me. I'd much rather live in an office while paying off a house in Fiji, then move into that in 20 years and work a lot less.

Another alternative is living in an RV. I've considered this, and since Bay Area rent can pay off a really really really nice RV in ~5 years, it's s viable option. The biggest hiccup is where to park it; national parks would be awesome, but they're not free, Internet access is spotty, and it'd be a long commute every day. Even working remotely, month-to-month RV park communities can be over $500 a month, so that doesn't quite feel like you're beating the game of rent-seeking by property owners as much as I'd like. RVs also require maintenance and probably won't last as long as a house, but even if you get 20 years out of it, or buy it used and sell it where the depreciation is much less per month than rent would have been, you can come out ahead.