When An Employee Can Work Their High-Paying Tech Job From Anywhere, Why Stay In High Priced Housing?

I have been reading more and more about folks paying astronomical rents (ie $5-6,000 for a two-bedroom in SF) or crazy-high home prices (median home price in San Francisco $1.3 million) packing up and heading to Lake Tahoe, to Austin Texas, and other regions. I have associates who moved to remote areas of California where $350,000 can get you a decent-sized home on 2-3 acres of land. As long as you have a strong internet connection and don’t miss the amenities of urban living, the ocean or the Bay you can save a ton of money and have a wonderful lifestyle. One of my friends is in high-tech and has a great fishing lake ten minutes from his mountain home. I’ve also heard of tech workers so crowded into small San Francisco apartments that now don’t have the space to effectively work from home and are moving to get an actual home office and back yard. Tanium, based in Emeryville, just announced to its 1,500 employees that they can work remotely permanently, joining Twitter, Slack and a growing number of tech companies offering this to their employees. In the Wall Street Journal today, Facebook reported 40% of its employees want to permanently work remotely, and Facebook is now recruiting a Director of Remote Work. I wonder if this person will have to come into the office…