I'm not sure where you're getting your 3x income numbers from, but they're simply ludicrous. With a mortgage of 3x your income, your mortgage will be less than 20% of your salary. For example, with an $85000/yr income, you earn about $5300 post-tax per month, and your mortgage payment is only $1350. If you consider home owning to be important to you, surely you can afford paying more than that for your mortgage.

Furthermore, it is impossible to find a home in the bay area for under $600,000. I'm certain that those starter homes are not being occupied by high net-worth individuals with $200,000/yr salaries.

I have been told that your monthly payments should not be more than 45% of your monthly household post-tax income. That comes out to a mortgage that can be about 5x your income. With those numbers, the lady in the article should've had a household (her + her husband) income of about $150,000/yr.

I'm a recent buyer of a $625,000 home with a $85,000/yr salary and I have no problems keeping up with my payments and establishing an emergency fund.