What would it take for you to buy a house in a city where the median home price is 15 times the median income? I'm asking because I spent three months running numbers on Austin and Sacramento, and my honest answer was: nothing I could control. I have $60,000 saved for a down payment, a stable job, no kids, and I still couldn't make the monthly math work without a co-buyer. Renting has actually gotten cheaper than owning in 40 of the 50 largest US metros, according to an analysis from Bankrate last year. So is the fix on the supply side — more missing-middle housing, upzoning, shorter permitting — or is it on the demand side, with something like a land value tax or limits on investor purchases? I genuinely don't know which lever matters more, and I suspect the answer changes block by block.