The richest person I know here is the first named partner on downtown lawfirm (meaning he founded the firm). He's written major portions of the US legal code and makes money hand over feet as a practicing lawyer and professor at UCLA. He has a $7 million house in Brentwood LA (Brentwood is where Schwarzenegger lives(ed?)). I can almost guarantee that your house is nicer than his.
I used to travel to San Fran every quarter for work. I had some kind of idea of how ridiculous it was out there, but geez what your saying is even worse.
Example of what $1M gets you 20 miles outside of the city:
Lol, I googled it, and there appear to be lots of houses for sale in California that cost less than a million dollars... I'd save your pity for someone more needy
I used to travel to San Fran every quarter for work. I had some kind of idea of how ridiculous it was out there, but geez what your saying is even worse.
Example of what $1M gets you 20 miles outside of the city:
That little compound is Michael Jackson territory out here. So like $30M-$50M in BelAir (which pretty much the only place you'd find something like that)*. It's all about location. MatskiMonk is entirely right that you can find houses that cost less than $1M in Los Angeles. Compton, for example, has a ton of them... it does happen to be gang territory but... Some friends of mine that used to live here had a $500k home, and I felt unsafe visiting them in their neighborhood. Bars on windows everywhere, and a fair bit of criminal activity. Their house eventually got broken into and their stuff stolen.
Also if you're willing to spend 3 hrs per day commuting (like my boss does) that can get you something nicer as well. My house is in an awesome location and even has a view, that's why it's expensive. Brentwood (the other house I mentioned) is moviestar type convenient to everything going on in LA and has exclusivity. That's why it's so expensive.
So there's a trade. I made mine. Bottom line, don't live in Los Angeles.
Edit:
Also, to understand what's going on a bit. The actual structure I live in is probably only worth a $200k or so. Almost all of the value is the lot. If my house burned down it would still be worth the majority of what I paid for it. I could probably sell it for over $600k with the smoldering wreckage still smoking.
*It's really hard to compare though, because the insane places out here aren't quite that small. That size really doesn't exist here. If you had that kind of land ($$$) you'd put a much much bigger place on it.
Paying through the nose to live? Hopefully I can be where you are in 5 years!
