This is exactly it. After they hit whatever promo level that let’s them buy a home they usually stop trying to climb so hard unless they are really ambitious.

If you want your partner to stay home and help raise the kids you probably have to make L6 at a minimum.

You can make $250k and have zero chance of buying a single family home in the South Bay now. Prob need a household income around $300-350k before it starts to become reasonable. The recent interest rate hikes really jumped up the monthly payments. Dumpy houses can go for $2m, USD but that is slowly trending down.