<prompt> Human: I live in the bay area and the decent homes around the city are close to 1M mainly between 800K-900K. So if the general rule is to save at least 20 for a downpayment for a new home, that means I would need to save close to 200K... what confuses me is what average person has 200K sitting in their bank account when cost of living is already expensive as here? Not only that, but the home prices continue to grow and has been for a long time now. Am I missing something here?  <response>: The average person does not own a home in the bay area. The average person there rents. I do, and plan to keep doing so.The bay area is a housing bubble that is totally out of sync with the rest of the country, with the exception of a few other ultra-expensive enclaves, like Manhattan, NYC. 