<prompt> Human: Im a young professional brining in 120,000 a year or about 6,000 - 6,500mo after taxes. My expenses are limited to at most 3,000mo, but I spend 1,800mo for rent in SF.My dream is to establish a passive income source and would love to do so by owning my own property. I feel I am tossing away my hard-earned income every time I pay rent, and think the best financial move for me would be to stay paying a mortgage instead, ASAP. Also, AirBnB is very popular in the area, almost making it hard not to be successful renting out an apartment.The problem is I live in SF, where it is seemingly impossible to buy your own property. From my brief research, it seems you cant buy a one bedroom in a decent area for less than 1 mil maybe 750k. At these prices, will I ever own a property? How much money should I have saved up, and should I be striving to that as my primary financial goal?  <response>: San Francisco has the highest price-to-rent ratio of any city in the United States. You are definitely not throwing money away by renting. Especially as a young, presumably unmarried person who probably doesnt know where they will be in five years. 