As someone who lives and works in the bay area, you cannot buy a house with a software engineer's salary, not unless it is a very poor neighborhood, in which case you're contributing to gentrification, or you want to drive 2 hours from Pleasanton. I say that as a software engineer home owner who bought a house before the prices sky rocketed again in 2011. I wouldn't be able to afford my own house right now.
If you are an entry level software engineer, living alone, you could buy and afford a condo. I agree house prices are out of reach now unless you're a sr. software engineer. All I can say is rent a room for as long as you can (~800 a month or less) for now, and save every penny you can. Once the next housing market crash takes place you will have a downpayment ready. It worked for me.
The median home value in Pleasanton is 850k. 100k more than San Jose. If you are trying to save money, that's probably not the place to do it. Really you are looking at Antioch/Concord up 680 or over the Altamont on 580 to Tracy if you want to get significantly more affordable. Both are heinous commutes though.
As a kid, I had a parent that worked at the Almaden IBM campus. The commute from the Livermore/Pleasanton area was about 40-50 minutes going over 84. Crazy how much worse traffic is now, I can't imagine making that drive daily now. They've been working on the the 237/Mission exits on 680 for nearly 20 years and it has only gotten worse.
Yeah, I also don't understand how buying a house within one's own means is gentrification. Is the definition of "afford" different between your "very poor" neighbors and you, the "software engineer"?
OK, I guess maybe the original point was that there are super-cheap and super-expensive houses, and software engineers could afford something in between. They have to choose a poor neighborhood where they are wealthier, or a reasonably-priced but distant suburb.
