OP explicitly mentioned Bay Area in his post. I'd agree that housing policy is brain-dead in the Bay Area and that causes a lot of the high CoL; the other major factor is that these tech salaries are a significant fraction of total earners, which gives people selling to them enough of a market to raise prices. If 1% of the population makes $300K/year, they get to live like a 1%er. If 10% of the population makes $300K/year, they live like a 10%er.
