Why I think my west coast friends are crazy

Forbes has a new article out addressing the shift in real estate from a seller's market to a buyer's market. I didn't find the article that revealing, but it did point me to empirical proof that Atlanta offers terrific real estate value relative to the rest of the country.

With the nation sitting at a median housing price of $225,000, metro Atlanta has a median price of just $172,722 which is 23% less than the national average.

The title of today's post not only applies to many cities on the west coast, but Boston, Washington D.C., and Miami as well.

For my friends out west, the graph of San Diego reflects the norm in most west coast markets where the median price of a single family home is two to three times the national average, which is incomprehensible to me. While I think the views can be spectacular, perhaps I'm myopic, but I don't see the appeal of paying a 100-200% premium for the privilege of living there.