[quote=spdrun]If you’re really making $500k/yr, you’re probably bringing home $300k/yr after taxes. That makes you able to afford at least one $100k down payment on a property per annum, say at 50% down. If each one makes $10k/yr, you’ll have a $100k/yr income in ten years. At that point you’d be using it to increase the pace of buying or start slowing down and stepping off the treadmill.
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Not many people maintain $500K a year for 10 years running.

For Irvine, most are in the $150K to $250K with a decreasing set of outliers to $350K and an even smaller set above that range of income. By and large, it’s the $150K to $250K crew buying and living in the $800K to $1.2M homes.

So they making $250K, bringing home $175K and they’ve got $60K in PITI, another $30K/yr in cars and car insurance, $10K a year on dining and food, they’re spending another $20K a year on montessori/preschool/childcare, and smoking $5-$10K on gas to run to two jobs. you stuff some money in their 401Ks, take a vacation and add the cable bill and they’ve got a little cash left.

At $500K, you should be able to fatten your bank account, again 99%+ aren’t making that.

[quote=The-Shoveler]In the case of Irvin I think you have two things going on.

1) There are a lot of people with old house wealth (they originally bought in OC way back in the 80’s & 90’s)

2) Dual income families (each earning 6 figures), no way close to the national average (or even OC average, top 5-10 %).[/quote]

Yes, they’re dual incomes and they lose one of those incomes and they’re upside down.