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This cost of living differential between the west coast and the rest of America is getting ridiculous.

If you can leverage the overpriced west coast but live in low COL area somewhere else, good for you.

The cost difference, if anything, has narrowed since the start of the pandemic.

That's what I've seen anecdotally too. Not on the west coast, but in a major metro area on the east coast that has traditionally been seen as "expensive". I'd occasionally get sucked down Zillow rabbit-holes where I'd look at cheaper areas in the middle of the country and daydream about the palace I could buy for the price of my modest house here. But these days, the enormous differential doesn't seem to be there. I certainly won't say the middle America prices have caught the coasts, but they've grown at higher rates so that the difference isn't what it used to be.

I wouldn't consider Austin low COL.

I wouldn't move to Austin just in general.

I would look at Louisville, Kentucky or Charleston or Baltimore or some other area.

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