Seventeen years ago I lived in a walkin refrigerator in a warehouse on a $600/month budget - I loved it. The artist warehouses in Oakland do contain a certain magic, if a few housing hazards as well. The gain for me was a formative love of humanity, at the cost of being plagued by adult onset asthma. Asbestos? Freeways? Who knows. What can I say? I've lived.

Since then, my budget, and housing standard has dramatically increased - I now have 3 refrigerators in a house. On this journey through at least 20 addresses, the first 10 years all started with a sense of upward momentum, a belief in a path forward to even better housing. The last few years housing has taken a background role, as my quality of life improvements aren't going to come from a bigger house. Who needs more than 3 refrigerators? Interestingly, I see this journey reflected in the data. Increasing a budget from 200k to 400k opens up much more housing than an increase of 400k to 600k. Take your pick of linear or log growth functions and starting points - but the conclusion holds. The quality of life improvements we get from increasing lower housing budgets are dramatically larger than the quality of life improvements we get from increasing higher housing budgets.

• Overall, I hope you take two conclusions from this data:
• Small changes in house prices between 100k and 500k have dramatic effects on housing availability for most of the US population.
• For folks working with budgets over 800k, the world is more open than you might think, especially if you're a remote worker.